


Monster Mayhem on Mystery Mountain

by Salchat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Chases, Cosiness, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Looking for clues, Monsters, Mystery, Old Creepy House, Scooby Doo References, Secret Passages, Skiing, Snow, Team Dynamics, Very large snacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:20:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29677614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salchat/pseuds/Salchat
Summary: John and his team visit a snow-bound, mountain-top community to agree a trade for the locals' coffee-like beans.But danger lurks in tunnels within the mountain and in the strange and beautiful Temple of Colours. Has an ancient monster arisen to protect the Gods' rightful tribute? Can our team solve the mystery before disaster strikes?  And will Rodney ever meet the required standard to earn his Eager Beavers Skiing Proficiency Badge?
Relationships: Rodney McKay & John Sheppard
Comments: 13
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This little adventure was inspired by an article I read about winter in Darjeeling, where apparently it rarely snows, but I liked the idea of a snowy mountain town. And then I fancied having a monster, so the idea of using Scooby Doo tropes occurred - suspicious characters, crazy chases, unrealistically large snacks and of course, I had to include the SGA equivalent of Velma losing her glasses. So, let’s see if the gang can solve this mystery!
> 
> All chapters are complete and will be posted daily, except for Friday and Tuesday when I post 'Cold Wind from Teksa'corani.'
> 
> Thank you, once again, to the wonderful Eox_x for her beta-ing expertise!

“Chak-tah,” said John, pulling his snow goggles down over his eyes. “Doesn’t that mean something in Klingon?”

“Probably.” Rodney ran his finger underneath the bottom edge of his snow goggles, making sure the slick moisture of his factor one hundred sunscreen covered every square millimetre of exposed skin. “And in Goa’uld. And Unas too. Chak-taaaah!” He looked around the stone Gate platform and up toward the hill town. “Shouldn’t there be someone here to meet us? Make sure we don’t fall off a precipice or down a crevasse or something?” He gave a titter of nervous laughter.

“The route is clear, Rodney.” Teyla, her hair smoothly arranged beneath the band of her goggles, gestured up the narrow path. Long poles punctuated the way, topped by tattered flags which streamed out in the stiff, biting-cold wind - the wind that was keeping a couple of nice strong gusts in reserve to sweep you off the knife-edge route and whip past your flailing body as you plummeted to your death.

Rodney cleared his throat and swallowed. “Hm, I suppose. You’d think if they’re that keen to trade their coffee-substitute, they’d send a guide. Or put in a hand rail.” He'd tasted, and fallen in love with the bitter, rich, smoky, vanilla-sweet brew the first time he and his team had visited this world. “Chak-taaaaah!” he said again, in anticipation. “Can’t wait to get me some Chak-tah.”

“Better stop talking and get moving then.” Ronon nudged Rodney toward the path, his white winter gear rustling as he moved.

“Yeah, Ronon, take point,” said John. “Teyla, see if you can stop Mr Stay-Puft falling off the path. I’ll be on six.”

“What? Stay-Puft?” Rodney looked down at himself and then up at John and Teyla, who, clad head-to-toe in white one-piece snowsuits, both looked like they were about to calmly take on a black run, but for their lack of skis. “ _You_ both look cool!” He glanced at Ronon who’d stopped on the slope above and was gazing out over the vista of sharp, white-edged peaks while silhouetted against the electric blue sky. He looked like an ice god. “ _He_ looks cool! _I_ must look cool!”

John gestured toward the path with his P-90. “C’mon, Rodney, time’s a-wastin’”

“But -” He looked down at himself again. Then he followed Teyla’s gesturing arm, down the gritted steps of the platform and onto the compacted snow of the steep path. “I look like a marshmallow man, don’t I? Mr Stay-Puft with his face stuck in a sardine can.” He flapped a hand at his reflective goggles.

“You look like a man well-equipped for the terrain, Rodney,” said Teyla. Her lips curved beneath her goggles.

Rodney stomped past her, up the narrow path. “It’s always the way. No matter how many lives I save, how many last-minute miracles I pull off, I still end up a figure of fun.” He passed a flag pole and used it to haul himself up over a sheet of exposed rock, slick with ice. “You lot go around all long and lean and poised and I’m the dumpy hanger-on, the fat kid trying to fit in with the gang.” His boots dug into a patch of newly-fallen snow. He shifted his course so that he could step into Ronon’s boot prints. “It’s discrimination. Not to mention downright rudeness. I’m not even overweight! All this hiking sees to that.” He passed another flagpole. “Not to mention the running away.” His breath puffed in front of him, a plume of tiny droplets in the thin mountain air. “So, you know, long-distance hikes, short, run-for-your-life sprints - I can do it all.” His foot went out from under him, but he ignored Teyla’s offered arm, righted himself and continued. “And all I get is abuse.” The snow crunched and squeaked beneath his boots. He was glad he’d decided on three extra pairs of socks. “Abuse, and name-calling and insults.” He stomped on, his eyes down, his thoughts full of resentment. Teyla could have said something nice. But she didn’t. Huh.

“Rodney.”

“What? Thought of something else to call me? Yeti, for example? Or no, how about the Pillsbury Doughboy? But, trust me, if you poke me in the stomach, I _will_ shoot you off the face of this mountain!”

“Rodney, turn around.”

“No.” He stomped on. The path was broader and it was easier to keep up a really angry stomp. There was an obstacle in his way. “Move, Ronon.”

“Turn around, McKay.”

Two large hands on his shoulders propelled him through one hundred and eighty degrees. John and Teyla stood below him. And behind them - a thin, gossamer-strand of winding ribbon, with a sheer, sickening drop either side - was the path; the path he’d just traversed, with never a thought to plunging to his death, never a moment of head-spinning, nauseous vertigo, not one single glance to the blue-distant valley floors, moving past him to either side, far, far, far below.

Rodney squeaked and sat down in the snow.

Then John’s hand was on his shoulder. “You okay there, buddy?”

“I haven't decided.”

“Sorry about that. I just thought, you know…”

“If you pissed me off I wouldn’t think about plummeting to my death?" Rodney squeezed his gloved fingers through the snow. Cold began to seep through the layers of clothing beneath him but he wasn't ready to relinquish his contact with the comforting firmness. "I saw a picture of one once, you know. An arête. In a geography textbook. And I thought, 'You'd have to be a total idiot to walk along that.'"

John shrugged and gave him an idiotish grin.

"Oh well." Rodney held out a hand and his friend helped him to his feet. "Thanks. For… being annoying."

"You're welcome. And Rodney? For the record? You do look cool."

"Oh." Rodney brushed himself down. "Really?"

"Someone coming," said Ronon.

Further up the slope, where scattered dwellings and narrow-peaked rocky shrines formed the outskirts of the town, a brightly-clad figure was striding toward them. He waved. "Welcome! Welcome to Shen-lay-tahn!"

oOo

"Hey, er, it's Den-Lay, isn't it?" John recalled the young priest from their earlier visit. The young man was easy to like, his broad smile shining from beneath the slitted fabric that was bound across his eyes.

"Please, call me Lay! And you are John and Rodney and Teyla and Ronon." His grin widened as if he'd just won them at a fair; probably in a grinning contest. "You are all well come once more to Shen-lay-tahn! Come, follow me." He turned and set off busily, beckoning them on with a flapping hand. "Let us get out of the cold and brightness, where we may see each other properly, yes?"

"Yeah, sure. Uh, we'll need to meet with the council again." They'd been in the middle of electing a new leader the first time John and his team had visited. He wondered who had won.

"You have tested the Chak-tah and found it good, yes? As I said you would."

"Yes, well, you can't be too careful with these things, can you?" Rodney rustled alongside John, unzipping the top of his suit a little way. "There might have been any number of trace ingredients with potential harmful effects."

"But you did not find any, did you?" said Lay. "Our Chak-tah is the drink of the Ancient Gods. They would not consume anything harmful! Or allow us to so endanger ourselves."

John glanced at Rodney whose changing expression revealed a battle to suppress thoughts of Ancients he had known, their distinct lack of godliness and their often more-than-willingness to see him consume a truckload of lemons. 

"Oh, I'll grant you it's good stuff," said Rodney, having won his internal battle against insulting the local religion. "Equal to any of your Jamaican Blue Mountain. Better, even."

Lay stopped at a roadside shrine, knelt, muttered a few words of prayer and ran his fingers through the cluster of tiny hanging bells. A few yards on, he did the same at the next shrine. And the next.

Rodney rolled his eyes. Teyla observed Lay, and examined the paintings that adorned the back of each of the concave structures. Ronon appeared to have zoned out, but John was confident that all his teammate's senses were tuned to any threats that might emerge.

"It's going to take all day at this rate," muttered Rodney.

"Gotta keep 'em sweet, Rodney," said John.

"He is certainly devout." Teyla's boots crunched on chips of ice as she approached the shrine that Lay had just left. 

Not twenty yards on was another and at least six more before they reached the town proper. John resigned himself to a long wait. His toes were cold.

"John, look at this."

He bent down beneath the conical roof of dry, stacked rock. "I can't see." He pushed his goggles up onto his forehead and squinted at the painting, daubed onto the curved surface at the back of the small shrine, behind candles and a litter of small offerings. He squinted at the image. “What is that, a polar bear?"

John found himself pushed aside.

"Let me look." Rodney crouched down. "Ha. Nice. And no. Polar bears don't have horns."

"It has horns?"

Rodney leant forward, knocking over some of the candles. "Yes, look. There and there." His fingers traced the curving lines. "And there are its sharp teeth and its claws, and here - you see these tiny little guys down the front? - these are normal-sized people."

"Cool," said John.

Rodney sat back on his haunches. "As far as I'm concerned, it's only 'cool' if it remains within the confines of this cartoon-like iconography. This," he thrust out an accusing finger, "is a creature it would do no one any good to meet, least of all sensitive and retiring scientists such as myself."

John snorted.

"The colours are very vibrant," said Teyla. “The figures almost appear to move.”

"You are admiring our shrine, yes?" Lay had backtracked when they had fallen behind.

John stood up. “Who's the big bad?"

"You mean the Vey-tek-lah? It is an agent of the Ancient ones, said to rise either to reward or punish as the gods see fit."

"Hm. It looks more inclined to the punishment end of that spectrum to me," said Rodney. "Is there any truth in it or can it be safely relegated under the label 'mumbo-jumbo'?"

"Rodney!" Teyla's part of their pre-mission briefing, entitled 'Respecting the local religion', still rang in John's ears. Her words had obviously whisked past Rodney's like an express train.

"Do not worry!" said Lay, who fortunately didn't seem like the sacrilege-equals-dire-punishment type. "Those of us who are, let us say, enlightened scholars of the ancient texts believe the idea arose from simple confusion. The word Vey-tek-lah, meaning 'giant ice monster' is very similar to Vey-tel-kah, which refers to an extinct species of large, non-aggressive mountain quadruped, similar to the little animals that provide us with wool and milk; a mistake in translation only, I assure you."

"Ha. Linguists? Can't trust 'em," scoffed Rodney.

"Come, the light is fading," said Lay.

John's goggles were still perched on his forehead, but he realised he no longer needed them. The sun had passed behind the high mountains and the glare was much reduced. Lay had pushed his eye-screen down so that it hung around his neck.

John made sure Rodney and Teyla went ahead of him and checked Ronon was following.

"What do you think?" John said, over his shoulder.

"Same as when we came last," said Ronon. "He smiles too much."

"He's a happy guy."

"He prays too much."

"Yeah, I'll agree with you there. Although he can pray all he likes once we're indoors."

They trudged on. John ducked down beneath the overhang of the next shrine. The Vey-tek-lah leered back at him. It was there in the next and the next and then it grew too dim to see and they hurried toward the blossoming flares of lantern light coming from the windows of the town.

oOo

Den-Lay had led them to a building known as the High Halls, which was on the upper slopes of the town.

The High Halls was a very old structure, and it was impossible to tell where it ended and the surrounding buildings began, so many sections had been added over the years since it was the first dwelling place of the community. Like the rest of the town, it was supported by the bedrock of the mountain, and took its strangely random form from the indents and outcrops that it was built around. Little staircases led up and down, left and right, passages narrowed and widened, rooms were stepped and sometimes sloped. To add to the confusion, carved wooden screens occasionally allowed a view of a passage or room, but permitted no access, and heavy hanging tapestries had the appearance of shielding solid walls, where there was a passable way.

Teyla was shown to the room where she had stayed on their last visit. Having removed her cumbersome winter gear and freshened up, she slid back one of the wooden shutters a little way so that she could look out over the cascade of dwellings that covered the mountainside.

The sun had set fully and, gazing down on the great fanning multitude of tiny orange and yellow lights and red-painted roofs it was as if someone had tipped a giant bucket of glowing coals from somewhere above her. Scents rose - smoke and spice and the sweet heaviness of incense - and the tinkling of bells carried in the clear air as well as the deeper reverberant boom of a solemnly tolling gong.

The shallower slopes lost in the darkness below and to one side of the town, were terraced, Teyla recalled, their precious soil retained by stone walls into rank upon rank of stepped areas, following the curves of the mountainside. These steps, and the small, goat-like kereks, were the people's only agricultural resources. But they had learned, over thousands of years, that the Chak-tah beans were a greater resource than any rolling fields of rich soil, and so were able to trade for much of their food and other needs.

But trading contracts with the people of Shen-lay-tahn were hard to come by. They valued their Chak-tah, as Den-Lay had said, as the drink of the Gods, and the Gods were always offered a large proportion of the annual harvest.

Someone knocked at the door and Teyla slid the shutter back into place.

"Come in."

Rodney's head appeared around the door. "Meeting. Now. With the Council." He disappeared, then popped back again, urgent and eager. "Over dinner."

Teyla straightened her jacket, smoothed her hair and prepared to negotiate a trade.

oOo

You could see everyone two ways, thought Ronon; or even more than two.

The newly elected leader of the council, for example, Mira-Fan. She was friendly and welcoming but with a sharp gaze that said she wasn't to be fooled or cheated. She could be a fair leader. On the other hand, the looks of glowering resentment one of the other Council guys was giving her over his bowl of soup told Ronon that not everyone was happy with her leadership.

And, glancing around the low table, there were other undercurrents passing between the diners, as the dishes themselves were passed around: nervousness from the young woman who sat next to the glowering man, (they’d been introduced to everyone, but he’d forgotten the names), anxiety from one or two of the other counsellors, who watched Mira-Fan closely - for approval? - and even Den-Lay seemed uneasy beneath his grinning exterior.

It appeared that the dinner was more a preliminary get-together than a beginning to their negotiations. Ronon wasn’t surprised. Having been witness to a few trading deals, he’d realised that most societies liked a bit of ceremony, either to build up the anticipation, and thus the price, or simply because their simple agricultural lives needed a bit of colour. Ronon was a soldier. He got his colour in battle; although the food was good, so he didn’t mind the delay too much.

Conversation, however, was sporadic and stilted, not like the easy flow of chat the first time they'd visited.

Den-Lay, sitting to Ronon's right, passed him a platter of some kind of meat and it was a good thing Ronon wasn't fussy; the priest's hands didn't look any too clean.

"Thanks." He forked some of the rich, spiced dish onto his plate and passed it to his left.

Mira-Fan's clear voice broke through the uneasy murmuring. “The High Halls was originally home to our whole community."

"What's that?" Rodney sniffed at the meat.

“Although most of it lies empty now,” she continued.

"Didn't ask," Ronon grunted.

“As Leader, I am granted the privilege of residing within its walls.”

"Oh, how helpful," Rodney sneered.

“But most of the time, I admit, I prefer to retire to my own house.”

"Just eat it."

“I have heard there are ways into the mountain where one might shelter from the Wraith." Teyla’s voice was clear, carrying and, to those who knew her best, disapproving of her teammates’ inattention.

"And potentially die a horrible death.” Rodney hissed angrily.

“Ah, yes, we have our secret ways,” said Mira-Fan. "But the main use of the caverns within the mountain is storage; of both our Chak-tah harvest and grain brought up from the lowland farms to see us through the winter."

"Too cold to grow citrus here,” said Ronon.

“Once, there were many ways into the mountain, but we have found it prudent to block all but a few. And then, should the need arise, we can easily seal ourselves in until the danger is past.”

Ronon’s casual response didn’t meet with Rodney’s approval. "Trade? These people trade, yes? They go through that big round thing back down the mountain and there's potentially any number - and I mean any number, the possibilities are limitless - _any_ number, I say, of sub-tropical climates rife with the Pegasus equivalents of lemons, oranges, limes, _kumquats_ \- you name it, it's out there!"

"Keep it down, McKay."

"Oh, thank you, Sheppard, I'll just sit here on my nicely embroidered cushion and die quietly, shall I?"

"Just chill, Rodney. None of this has citrus in. I checked."

"Oh, well, you could have told me."

"I did. You were too busy chowing down to listen."

"Chowing -?"

A loud voice interrupted. "There are those that believe too many of the access ways have been sealed." The grumpy councillor regarded Mira-Fan with a challenging eye. "And that those in authority favour themselves when it comes to safe shelter from the Wraith."

Mira-Fan set down her spoon and wiped her fingers on a napkin. "Dol-Tuk, this is neither the time nor the place to debate such matters, were there any need for further debate."

"Debate? Yes, there is need for debate, because there has _been_ none. _You_ have spoken and _we_ have obeyed!"

"It was agreed, Councillor."

"Not by me!"

The nervous woman attempted to pacify her angry neighbour. "Mira-Fan has ensured that there is an accessible tunnel in every quarter of the town, Dol-Tuk."

"Only for those fleet of foot or near at hand! Such as yourself, Sera-Min!" Dol-Tuk's accusation broke off as he winced in sudden pain. He waved away offers of help, taking a small paper packet from the pocket of his embroidered robe and shaking out a couple of brown pills. He swallowed them down with a gulp from his glass.

"Are you alright, Councillor?" Mira-Fan enquired.

"Yes, I'm alright!" he snapped. "My digestion is merely unbalanced by a surfeit of rich food and further irritated by a surfeit of empty words."

The strained atmosphere threatened to erupt into a general argument. But then there was a disturbance behind the colourful hanging that covered the entrance to the room. A man burst through.

"As I thought!" The man's red and gold robes proclaimed him a priest. "Another trading contingent!"

Den-Lay got to his feet. "Peace, Honoured Father! These are the Atlanteans of which you were told."

"I care not where they are from. Already our offering to the Gods will be smaller this year. And so it has been, year on year, growing ever smaller until the Gods will know they are no longer revered!"

Mira-Fan had also risen. "Kesh-Ven, this is only what was agreed. We have spoken of our need for increased trade. And you were bidden to come to this meeting, and to the negotiations tomorrow, if you would. Please, sit."

"I will not sit!" He glared at each of the diners from beneath his bushy white brows, his thin, trailing moustache quivering with passion. "I have warned you what will happen if this continues, Mira-Fan."

"Honoured Father -"

"And you, Den-Lay, you who have read the true scriptures! Does your heart not tremble within you?"

"Please, Father -" began the Leader.

"No! I will not be silenced!"

"We'd noticed," Rodney muttered.

"Mark well my words! If the Gods do not receive their full offering - full and overflowing from the bounty they have bestowed - then it will rise!"

Rodney looked up from the bone he was nibbling. "What, sorry - rise?"

"The Vey-tek-lah! The judgement of the Gods! The Vey-tek-lah will rise and the undeserving will be punished!" With a final glare and a flourish of his robes, the old priest departed.

"I take it he didn't mean the giant extinct goat," said Rodney, into the silence.

oOo

"Will the priest be a problem?" Elizabeth's voice came clearly over the radio.

"I don't think so." John kicked off the quilted slippers he'd been given. "The leader seems keen."

"Teyla said they're a very religious people."

"Yeah, but the younger guy, Den-Lay, takes a pretty liberal interpretation." John walked the perimeter of his room, checking the wood panelling for tell-tale draughts, lifting wall hangings and looking behind. "He says their scriptures have been misinterpreted. They don't need to make such a big offering to their Gods."

"What do they do with the offering? Burn it?"

"Yeah, think so. Great big bonfire. Probably make s’mores. Oof!"

"John?"

"Sorry, it's nothing. The bed's really low." He prodded the mattress, feeling the wooden slats of the bedframe through the thin padding.

"Do what you can to keep relations friendly," said Elizabeth.

"Don't I always?"

He could almost hear her smile. "Goodnight, John. Atlantis out."

There was no nightstand. John put the radio under his pillow. He undressed, then put some of his clothes back on again. The cylindrical brazier in the corner of the room wasn't giving out much heat.

He got into bed, then tapped a quick jerking pattern of knocks on the wall above him.

The knocks were returned. Rodney was okay. 

He looked up at the slatted lantern that hung from the ceiling. Its light was dim, the room shadowy; he left it lit and closed his eyes.

oOo

John shot out of bed and fell in a heap on the floor. "Dammit!"

It was freezing cold, the lantern had gone out and he didn't know what had woken him. He'd also forgotten the floor would be quite so close. He picked himself up and picked up his sidearm while he was at it.

There was a howling, rending groan from the corridor. John quickly pulled on his pants. He slid back his door with a dull wooden rumble. A flashlight shone in his face.

"Sheppard?"

"Eyes, Rodney!"

"Oh. Yes. Sorry."

The beam became a pool on the floor.

"Did you hear that?"

The door opposite opened. "I heard a creature." Teyla held her sidearm in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

"This way!" Ronon's voice came out of the darkness to John's left.

The groan came again.

"Do you think it's the Vel-whatsit?" The beam of Rodney's flashlight wobbled.

"I don't know what it is," said John. "Just don't get lost."

They followed the passage down a small, uneven flight of stairs, then up a narrower flight, which twisted to the right. Rooms led off the staircase, all empty and quiet. 

The passage broadened into a larger area, the floor covered with a patterned carpet, the walls decorated with scenes of mountain life. Several passages and stairways led in different directions. The eerie, moaning call came again.

“Down here.”

John led his team onward, the shadows dancing in the beams from their flashlights and the few dim lanterns hanging from the ceiling. There were more branching passages to either side. The walls were painted dark red, with faded gold patterns. They descended a wider stairway and the wall on John’s right was a carved wooden screen through which he could see a staircase on the diagonal to theirs. They reached a landing.

"It's like being inside an Escher," said Rodney. "You know one of those drawings where the perspective's -"

"Ssh!" Teyla held up a hand. "I heard something. From behind this."

Tapestry hangings covered the wall. They billowed out in a sudden draft and then drew back into a concave shape. 

John lifted one edge slowly, his sidearm ready.

Bright light flooded out and something moved. He flung up a hand to shade his eyes.

"Colonel Sheppard!" It was Mira-Fan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, what’s the esteemed Leader up to? Highly suspicious! Have you picked up what might be going on yet? Spotted any clues?
> 
> Thank you for reading! Please comment and leave kudos!


	2. Chapter 2

The council leader lowered her lantern and flicked at a lever to close the slats and dim the brightness. "Is anything wrong?"

"I was gonna ask you that," said John.

"Me?"

"We heard a sound," said Teyla. "A cry."

"Oh. Perhaps it came from below. In the town?"

"It wasn't from outside." Ronon shifted to try to see behind her.

John glimpsed bare, rough rocky walls before the council leader stepped forward and let the tapestry fall back into place. 

"Is that one of the tunnels where you hide from the Wraith?"

"Yes. Although they are mostly natural passages rather than tunnels," she said.

"I didn't realise there was a way in here."

"There are not many entrances," said Mira-Fan. "As I told you, deliberately few, in fact, so that they may be easily blocked in an attack. This one is used primarily so that my administrators may inventory the storage chambers."

"Is that what you were doing in there?" asked Rodney. "A spot of late night admin?"

"In a way. There seems to be a discrepancy in our count of grain sacks. We lose more every year and it was keeping me awake, so…" She held out her hands and gave a self-deprecating grimace.

Rodney's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"I've heard of counting sheep," said John, heading him off. "I guess counting grain sacks could work."

Mira-Fan smiled as she drew her woollen shawl closer around her shoulders. "It is cold. You should return to your beds."

"Yes, but what about that horrible noise we heard?" asked Rodney. The wind blew the hanging back and forth once more and a hollow moaning came from the passage behind.

Mira-Fan smiled. "As you hear, it is just the wind," she said.

"Huh. But -"

"McKay. Let's do as the lady says. Back to bed." John smiled at the council leader. "We'll all need some sleep if we're going to finalise our deal tomorrow."

"Indeed we will. Can you find your way?”

“Yeah,” said Ronon.

“Then I will bid you goodnight." She nodded, smiled and departed.

“The wind?” Rodney sneered. “Give me a break!” He lifted the corner of the hanging and shone his flashlight into the darkness. "I think I'll just -"

"Leave it, Rodney.” John pulled the hanging back into place.

"She was lying," said Ronon.

“She was,” said Teyla. “At least about the source of that sound. But, nevertheless, none of us has been harmed.”

“Yet!” Rodney flicked the beam of his flashlight around the walls “None of us has been harmed yet!”

“And so, we’ll just mind our own business, make our deal and go,” said John. “You want the Chak-tah, don’t you, McKay?”

“Yes, of course I do, but -”

“Then let’s leave well alone.” John led his team back up the stairs. “Anyways, for all we know Mira-Fan was up and around so she could meet someone for, like, personal stuff."

"That’s some pretty strange ‘personal stuff’ she’s got going on there. I’ve never heard anyone make sounds like that when they’re -"

"Yeah, thanks, I don’t think we want that image, Rodney."

“You suggested it.”

"It is best we return to our rooms," said Teyla.

"I don't like it."

"No, well, unless we turn up any evidence to the contrary, Chewie, we're gonna assume these are honest folks and see if we can fix an honest deal with them." They reached a junction and John waved Ronon ahead to lead the way, not trusting his own sense of direction.

His teammate led them unerringly back to their familiar corridor but John remained outside his room until each of his team's doors had slid shut. Then he stayed a little longer, until Ronon's door opened again.

"Goodnight, Chewie."

Ronon grunted and retreated and John returned to his own room and his bed.

oOo

“Teyla might need help,” said Rodney, skidding once again on the slick surface of the hardened snow.

“Teyla’s fine.”

Rodney adjusted his goggles, which were steaming up. “Ronon’ll get into trouble. If you’re not there to stop him.”

“Ronon’s fine.”

There was uncomfortable bunching going on in the deepest layers of his clothing and there’d soon be chafing and other painful consequences. “Well I’m _not_ fine,” declared Rodney, planting his feet in a softer patch of snow and looking up at John. “Why couldn’t we have stayed nice and cosy, drinking chak-tah and eating those little cake things that Teyla seemed to have a whole massive plateful of, just for the meeting? Any meeting where there’s cake involved - well, I feel I should be in attendance, that’s all!”

John stopped and turned round. His hair was sticking up above his goggles and his lips beneath were shining with a layer of Rodney’s factor one hundred and another layer of the greasy stuff that Den-Lay had given them, and also with the kind of manic grin John got whenever there was totally gratuitous, heart-pumping, limb-trembling exercise in the offing. “C’mon, Rodney, this is great! Look around you!” He waved a bulky white-clad arm at the surrounding vista.

Rodney cast a resentful glance at the white slopes of the surrounding mountains and a jealous glance at the town of Shen-Lay-Tahn below. The snow reflected what would have been a literally blinding white, if it weren’t for their goggles, and the sun blazed with a particularly harmful concoction of UVA, UVB and various other types of nastiness resulting from their high altitude and an uncomfortably close orbit of the sun. If this planet had been presented to Goldilocks as a bowl of porridge she would have been extremely grudging in her approval and her greediness would have ended with a singed mouth.

Den-Lay’s voice floated down from above. “It is a fine view, is it not?” 

The young priest’s face was covered with his slitted cloth protection. Rodney was surprised he could see the view at all. “This temple or whatever it is had better be pretty damn impressive if it’s going to justify such a ridiculous level of exertion. I don’t see why you had to drag me along.”

John’s forehead twitched slightly. Beneath the goggles there was no doubt eyebrow-raising going on. “I figured I was doing you a favour, Rodney.”

Rodney hauled himself up alongside his teammate, forcing the climbing stick Den-Lay had given him down into the snow and leaning on it heavily. “How so?”

“Well, you seemed pretty keen on those flatbread things we had for breakfast. Now you can work up an appetite for more.”

“Hmph.”

Rodney reached another turn in the winding, switchbacking path and stomped on, puffing hard and ignoring the view, which John seemed determined to admire, stopping at every turn in the road and then running to catch Rodney up. Not for the first time, an image of an over-enthusiastic, tongue-lolling sheepdog popped into Rodney’s mind.

When they reached the top of the ridge, Rodney's head was still down, his gaze on his snow-encrusted boots.

“Whoa!” John’s exclamation was filled with the boyish, chortling wonder he usually reserved for very fast aircraft or very large weapons.

Rodney looked up. And he had to admit, the sight which met his eyes most definitely justified the lung-bursting climb. “I’ll see your whoa and raise you a… I don’t know, maybe a stunned silence?”

“Do you do stunned silences?”

“Apparently not.” Rodney wondered if he dared raise his goggles just ever-so-slightly to see the structure before him without its slight yellow tinge. He decided he didn’t dare.

“That is so unbelievably cool!” said John.

“It’s like -”

“Superman’s Fortress of Solitude,” they said together.

Below them there was a hollow within a ring of peaks, which suggested that the mountain was in fact a long-extinct volcano. On the near side of the hollow was a stone-built cone, about ten metres in height and of primitive construction. But it was the structure that it backed onto that resembled Superman’s secret lair. Towering ice crystals leant into each other in an immense blue-white lattice that projected high above the man-made building. The structure shone like a palace of diamonds, its facets reflecting shafts of brilliant white light and jabbing at Rodney’s eyes even through his protective goggles. And some of the great prisms were so perfect that the light was refracted into its constituent colours, casting spectrum patterns onto the surrounding snow and colouring the air above the hollow in a glowing, rainbow haze.

“Now you see how the Temple of Colours gets its name,” said Den-Lay.

For once, Rodney decided the man’s grin was justified. “It’s amazing,” he said.

“Come!” Den-Lay began to descend the slope. “We can enter this way.”

“You can go inside?”

“Yes, of course. The entrance was built many thousands of years ago to house an altar and to be a necessary place of warmth for the priests, but the real wonder is the temple built by the Ancient Gods themselves.”

Rodney wasn’t in the mood to dispute the provenance of the ice crystals. He simply followed Den-Lay down a zig-zag route until they reached the conical stone structure. He had to duck to get through the low entrance.

“Ah, you’ve come to seek the truth, have you?”

Rodney blinked and pushed his goggles up onto his forehead. He blinked again as his eyes adjusted. The old priest, Kesh-Ven, stood by a stone altar, his lined face uplit by the single flame of an ornate oil lamp.

“I have brought our friends to see the Temple of Colours, Honoured Father,” said Den-Lay.

“Friends? They’re no friends of mine, or yours or anybody’s,” grumbled the old man. “Not if their friendship is bought at the cost of our lives.”

“We’re not here to hurt anyone,” said John. He’d pulled his goggles down around his neck, but his hair still stuck up. “We just want to trade.”

“What could you trade that would be of any use to us?”

“Medical supplies for a start,” said John. “Not to mention the help of our doctors when you need it.”

“There is no help that would be of any use against the Vey-tek-lah. See, here!” He took a scroll from beneath the altar and unrolled it carefully. “Here it is written of the fate of those who dishonour the Gods!”

Rodney peered at the faded brown lettering which danced before his eyes in the flickering lamplight. “We can’t read your script.”

“No? Well, here is something else that even a child could understand.” He put the scroll away and took another from beneath the altar, placing it reverently within the circle of light and slowly unrolling it to reveal dense paragraphs of text interspersed with pictures similar to those at the back of the shrines on the outskirts of the town.

“What is that scroll, Honoured Father? I do not recognise it.”

“That is because I have not yet shown it to you. Long have I searched in the deep places of the mountain whence came the scrolls that our ancestors hid long ago. And recently I have found this. An image of the Vey-tek-lah!”

The monster was unmistakable. Its image was exactly as it had appeared in the shrines, as Rodney had seen it the day before; its body a cool blue-white like the thickest, oldest ice and its raised arms tipped with long, curving, shining claws.

“That’s no linguistic misinterpretation,” he said. “How old’s this thing?”

“As old as the very oldest of our words of wisdom,” said Kesh-Ven. “It was made when the Ancient Gods walked these very mountain tops, blessing us with their divine presence.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure it was. But that doesn't mean this monster's suddenly going to rear its ugly head and go 'Grarrr' at _us_ , does it?"

Kesh-Ven released the scroll and it snapped shut. "You bring shame on our culture, Den-Lay! Shame - to bring these unbelievers to our sacred places so that they may mock our deepest truths!" The old priest put the scroll away.

"Honoured Father, I -"

"Show them, then!" Kesh-Ven flung up a hand and it trembled as he pointed to the inner doorway, from which soft rainbow light came. "Show them our temple, built with the Gods' own hands and see if they can mock even that!"

"We don't mean to -" began John.

"Come!" Den-Lay ushered them hastily through the entrance.

Rodney felt Kesh-Ven's eyes boring into his back as he ducked under the low lintel.

oOo

Ronon leaned against the wall, preferring to stand rather than spend an extended period squatting on the low cushions not knowing where to put his legs. He had positioned himself so that he could see the door as well as oversee the meeting, and if he tipped his head slightly to look out of the window behind his left shoulder, he had a view of the red roofs below and the narrow paths between them, slick with melting snow and mud.

Teyla and Mira-Fan had done most of the talking, the leader occasionally calling on, or being interrupted by, one or other of her counsellors. The argumentative Dol-Tuk, in particular, seemed inclined to dispute every point and be generally dissatisfied, until at last Mira-Fan quelled him.

"Peace, Councillor! The majority are agreed and that must be enough for you!" She turned back to Teyla. "I will have the documents drawn up and we will sign, with due ceremony, tomorrow."

Another ceremony. More boredom. Ronon stifled a sigh.

"I will look forward to it," replied Teyla.

She probably would, too.

The meeting dispersed. Teyla rose gracefully from her low seat. Most of the councillors left, including their leader, but the disgruntled Dol-Tuk approached, his thin black goatee quivering along with the trailing sleeves of his robe.

"This is not a legal agreement that you have made!" The man smelled strongly of sweet incense.

"The council have voted and agreed," replied Teyla. "And all of your conditions and requirements will be observed."

" _My_ conditions?" Spittle flew from the angry lips. "Were I in charge, there would be no agreement, no matter what the conditions! There are those of us who honour the old ways and do not sell what does not belong to us." He glared back and forth between Ronon and Teyla. "The Gods will have their due, mark well my words!" He flung himself around and departed with a swish of dirty blue silk.

Ronon pushed himself away from the wall with a jerk of his shoulders. "He seemed pretty pissed."

"I am sorry for Dol-Tuk's rudeness."

It was the nervous young woman, Sera-Min, who had been at the dinner the day before. Ronon had watched her during the meeting as she shifted uneasily on her seat and visibly stopped herself from playing with the end of her hair in its long black braid. She was the town Healer, and Mira-Fan had consulted her several times during the negotiations. Each time, despite her nervousness, she had answered with calm professionalism, her dedication to her work clear in her steady brown eyes.

"Sera-Min, is it not?" asked Teyla.

"Yes, but please, call me Min." She hesitated, twisting the hem of her green jacket. "Dol-Tuk is not a bad man. He stood for Leader in the election and lost to Mira-Fan. He believes she won through devious means."

"Did she?" asked Ronon.

"No! Mira-Fan is a truly honourable woman. She acts in the best interests of the town always."

"You are the town Healer," said Teyla. "That must be a position of great responsibility."

"It is." Min smiled, with an embarrassed twist of her lips. "I am sure you are thinking that it is too much responsibility for one so young, and that is very true."

"You must be good at what you do."

"I do my best. I would not have succeeded to the position yet, only the first apprentice died, and now the old Healer is very old and, sadly, bedridden."

"And you have stepped into the breech," said Teyla.

"I have. I do all that I can, all that I must for my people."

Ronon was reminded of another young healer in a very different society, determined to give all she could and more for her patients.

"Have you seen much of Shen-lay-tahn yet? I am going to see my master and call on some of my patients. Perhaps you would like to accompany me?"

Teyla looked at Ronon. He nodded. He'd very much like to spend some time in Sera-Min's company.

"Thank you," said Teyla. "We'd enjoy that."

oOo

Ice columns leant together in an inverted v-shape, meeting a little way above John's head, and the passageway thus created was lit by soft pinks and yellows of refracted light. It was human-sized , so he could see why the locals believed it had been constructed for their benefit, but the giant crystals did not line up against each other exactly - some were slightly longer, shorter, wider or narrower than others, creating an undulating, organic path.

Ahead of him the light grew brighter and when he emerged, his exclamation rang hollowly in the huge, hall-like space.

And for a moment, even Rodney was lost for words. "That's… that's…" 

"Pretty cool, huh?"

"Pretty cool," Rodney agreed, his voice breathy with wonder.

The floor was a smooth, ancient sheet of ice, reflecting the massive crystalline columns that soared high above, into a huge, cathedral-like space of sparkling light. This would have been impressive enough, but the structure extended beyond the central chamber, where more huge crystals had grown haphazardly in irregular groups or rows or small clusters, forming alcoves and anti-chambers, passages and hidden ways. As John walked the perimeter of the hall he noticed that some of the crystals were flawed and split and their dull green depths allowed little light to penetrate, while others were clear and perfect and sent rainbows of greens and violets dancing through the air.

Rodney hesitated by the entrance.

"You will not slip," said Den-Lay. "Thousands of years of wondering souls have taken away the floor's glassy surface."

"Good to know," murmured Rodney, tentatively stepping further into the hall.

"Is it safe?" John asked. "I mean, it's not gonna come crashing down on us, is it?"

"It's stood for thousands of years, Sheppard? Why would it choose today to fall down?" 

John shrugged. "I dunno. Just our luck?"

"It is safe," said Den-Lay. "Except some areas on the lower side of the valley where sometimes the snow melts and falls away. You may explore, with care."

Rodney strode toward John more confidently, his footsteps ringing and fluttering. He stopped and clapped his hands and the sound flickered in an echoing flurry of claps.

John tried it too, his enthusiasm provoking a round of applause from the acoustic. Rodney bowed left and right, one hand on his chest and an indulgent smile for his admiring audience.

"Accepting a Nobel, McKay?"

"It pays to be prepared for such things," said Rodney, giving that little characteristic lift onto his toes and equal-and-opposite rock back onto his heels.

"I don't think the Nobel committee’s watching right now, Rodney. Lay, is it okay if we have more of a look around?" John gestured to the clustered crystals surrounding the hall.

"Yes, of course. But they can be confusing. Call out if you get lost - I will come and find you."

"I'm sure we'll be fine." The place wasn't that big. There was no way you could get lost. "C'mon, McKay."

John plunged in amongst the leaning crystals, taking a winding path determined by two parallel ranks. He soon emerged back into the hall, Rodney close behind.

"Oh. We're back here," said Rodney. "Let's try that again. I'm leading this time."

He set off in a different direction. They came to a dead end, the flawless crystals reflecting their images with the clarity of a mirror; they retraced their steps a little way and took a different route.

"You should hide and I'll see if I can find you," said Rodney.

"Yeah, maybe." The hairs on the back of John's neck stirred. He glanced over his shoulder but there was nothing there, just cool blue-green ice.

"What's up?"

"Nothing. Keep going. We should be nearly at the edge."

Rodney stopped. "No. We're going parallel to the long edge of the hall."

"Are we?"

"Great. We'll have to yell for Den-Lay."

"Nah, we'll find our way. Just keep going."

“Hm.” 

Rodney carried on.

The walls reflected flanking images which rippled and jumped in the corners of John’s eyes. Then suddenly it was dark, the ice became dull and green and the way was full of shadows.

“That’s spooky,” said Rodney.

“It’s just the sun’s gone behind a cloud. Keep going.”

“This is a dead end. But it looks lighter through this wall. It must be close to the edge.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t break through. Let’s backtrack again.” John turned around and headed back the way they’d come.

“We should just yell. We’ve been in here ages. I’m hungry.”

“Have an energy bar.”

There was rustling and then chewing. John came to a turning on the left and took it. Then the sun came out again and he was surrounded by reflections of himself.

“Hey, look at this. Rodney?” John turned around. He could see his friend’s reflection, popping the remaining piece of energy bar in his mouth. “These are like mirrors.”

“Hm. Nice.” Rodney’s voice was muffled.

“What, the snack or the ice?”

“Both.” The voice sounded further away.

“Rodney?” John turned around. He caught a flickering glimpse of his friend’s dark hair and white snowsuit. “McKay. Where are you?”

“Here. I’m here. I can see you. Oh. No, I can’t, that’s reflection-you. Hold on, there you are. I’ll just -”

“No! Rodney, stay where you are!”

“John? Is that you?”

“McKay!” Black and white flashed around John. He stood still, but the images carried on moving. Then he heard Rodney’s voice, faint and far off. “Dammit, Rodney,” John muttered. He turned around and back-tracked to the area where the ice wasn’t as mirror-like, but found himself in another small chamber of dancing reflections. He turned again and went back the way he’d come. Images of himself mocked him from all directions.

And then a flicker of blue, barely there against the blue-white of the ice. John froze.

“Rodney? Lay?”

There was a soft, hissing sigh, like a breeze running between the ancient crystals. But the air was still. The hairs on the back of John’s neck stood to full attention. He drew his sidearm and turned a slow three-sixty, the weapon extended before him.

The accusing black barrel of his own weapon pointed at him from all directions. His hands wavered. What if he fired? What would happen to a bullet in this millenia-old, iron-hard ice? Would a bullet strike shards from the giant columns, would it bury itself deep within the water, frozen so long ago? Or would it ricochet around the walls, cutting him to shreds?

There was a movement, blue on blue, to his left. John spun toward it, but above the slide of his own boots on the ice, he heard something - behind him? - and spun around once more. A deep, grating moan slowly built and then faded. He couldn’t tell where it came from - behind, before, one side, the other - the groan rose again; deep, so deep it was as much a vibration in his chest as a sound. It faded once more.

“McKay?” John’s voice fell flat. There was no response.

Something moved. It wasn’t a reflection - he thought he could see it through the translucent wall - something huge and slow, like a great blue-grey cloud, formless and vague. Or was it simply a cloud-shadow, cast by the sun, distorted and confused by the refracting ice? John mirrored its movements, side-stepping smoothly, parallel to the wall, his weapon extended, because if this really was a threat there was no way he was facing it unarmed, ricochet or no ricochet.

The sibilant sigh rose again, broken by the cracking of half-formed consonants, as if the ice itself were speaking. A grating creak drew John’s gaze upward. Was the ice shifting around him? Were the columns that leant together in a crazy wig-wam slipping against each other, their balancing forces about to give way after standing for aeons?

There was a break in the crystal wall, a vertical slash of space, and beyond it something moved.

“Who’s there? Rodney? Lay?”

The movement stopped, blue-white within a blue-white frame. And then the groan began once more; a deep, creaking, ice-against-ice, torturous grind that seemed to rise up from the floor, through the soles of John’s boots. It grew into a rasping roar and there was more movement beyond the ice wall, flickering and then gone and the roar faded and John’s outstretched arms trembled and fell.

“Lay!” He yelled out, as loud as he could, then filled his lungs again. “Rodney!”

There was a distant response.

"Rodney, where are you?" John paused, straining to hear his friend's voice. Far off, there was a yell, then another, then a high-pitched, fading cry. “McKay!”

A deep groan rang once more through the ice hall, then a voice, distant, but approaching.

John wiped cold sweat from his brow. He wanted to run, hard and fast, to find his friend and get them both out. But if he ran, he’d lose himself; lose himself and risk losing Rodney too. The grinding moan came from another direction. John yelled again and clearly heard the response.

“I am coming!”

“Lay! Here!” Where was Rodney? Why wasn’t Rodney calling out anymore? “Lay!”

“I am here, John Sheppard!” Den-Lay was before him, approaching between the columns of ice. His smile faded when he saw John’s face. “Is something wrong? The way out is easy.” He gestured back the way he’d come.

“Yeah, there’s something wrong,” said John, his hands still curled around his weapon, his head darting to check over his shoulder. “There’s something very wrong. Help me find McKay. Now.”

“Of course.” The young priest led the way and, astonishingly soon, they were back in the central chamber.

“Rodney!” John yelled, and his voice echoed back at him.

“Do not call again,” said Den-Lay, as the echoes of John’s voice faded. “Wait.”

They waited. John twitched impatiently. There was no response.

“Do not worry. I will soon find him. Or perhaps he has already found his way out.”

“Quickly. I need to know he's safe."

“There is no hurry,” said Den-Lay.

“Yes, there is,” said John. “There is.”

He gripped his weapon and turned slowly as he followed Den-Lay through the twisting paths. He needed to find Rodney quickly before something happened to him, something that had seemed impossible, but now seemed all too real.

Because, as John had stood, lost in the ice temple, his eyes fixed on the gap between the towering crystals, he had seen something that denied his doubts, tore away his indecision. This had been no harmless cloud-shadow, cast on the ancient structure to confuse and alarm without reason; the sounds he had heard were not merely the creaking of aeons-old ice.

Between the vertical slash of columns, he had seen, unmistakably, indubitably, an eye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Creepy! What's happened to Rodney? Has the monster abducted him? 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Please leave comments and kudos!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ronon and Teyla have gone down into the town with Sera-Min, but what has happened to Rodney? And was it really an ice monster lurking in the Temple of Colours? Read on to find out!

The town was alive with activity, despite the cold, and Teyla was glad to be free of her snow goggles so that she could take in all the sights and busyness. Although the day was bright, the protective shielding was not needed amongst the overhanging roofs and trodden-to-slush snow of the narrow paths. 

As they descended the winding steps from the High Halls, Teyla caught glimpses into shops and houses and was intrigued by the domestic sights of this high-altitude life. Colour glowed about her in the colourful door-hangings and the clothes of the inhabitants. Goods hung from the surrounding walls: woven baskets, dried preserved meat, bunches of root vegetables and herbs, tools, leatherwork and so many other things that caught at her eyes and her interest. And everywhere there were tiny red lanterns and multicoloured flags strung in rows, hanging along the walls of the buildings and sometimes across the street, so that Ronon had to duck beneath.

“Honoured Mother, please accept my gift!”

Yet another item was offered to Sera-Min with a smile and a bow. She bowed in return and accepted the wrapped package, stowing it in a string bag along with the others she had been given. They moved on.

“You are held in high esteem by your people,” said Teyla.

“Yes.” The Healer’s gaze fell to her feet and her cheeks, pink with the cold, blushed further to red. “As town Healer, I have high status.” Her eyes rose. “But though I know much, I recognise my limitations. The help of the Healers of Atlantis would be a great thing for us!”

“You would not lose face if you were seen to accept our help and medicines?”

“Oh, well, it is possible. The knowledge that has been passed on to me by my master is regarded in my culture as sacred - a trust that must continue from one generation to the next. It is possible if I were seen to defer to off-world ways that there would be some uneasiness.”

“This does not worry you?”

They had come to a small courtyard, in the centre of which was a sunken pool, its waters crystal clear, so that fish could be seen drifting and curling over a base of smooth pebbles. Sera-Min sat down on the stone coping.

“The medicines and techniques you have described would be of great benefit to this community,” she said. “That is all that matters.”

oOo

There was a hole in the ice floor, at the far edge of the clustered columns, where the ground fell away into the great snow-filled bowl of the crater.

“It is not certain that your friend fell through,” said Den-Lay.

John crouched down and plucked a scrap of white thread from the jagged edge. He held it up.

“Ah.” The young priest's brows twitched together in concern. “Come! We will fetch snow shoes and perhaps some rope. The surface below is treacherous.”

John followed Den-Lay silently back through the twisting blue maze. Rodney was down there. He’d fallen through the hole in the ice and down the steep side of the crater; he could be hurt or buried or hypothermic or all three. Or he could be facing down a nightmare.

"You must have heard it," John said, ducking under the lintel to enter the conical shrine.

"As I have said, I heard only the movement of the ice, which is natural when the sun is so bright." Lay disappeared into a side room, set into the curve of the cone.

"But I saw it, Lay! I saw its eye! D'you have any weapons round here?"

"We will not need -"

"So, it has risen, as I foretold!" The old priest, Kesh-Ven, clasped his hands together with grim satisfaction. John hadn't seen him enter. Had he come behind them, from the ice hall? "The Vey-tek-lah has returned, to take its due and punish the unrighteous!"

"Did you see it?"

Lay emerged, carrying some pairs of oval snowshoes by their criss-cross webbing. "It was just cloud shadows and the creaking of the ice," he said, with an edge of impatience. He held out a pair of the snowshoes to John. "Come, we must hurry."

"Speed will avail you not if your friend faces the Gods' revenge!"

"Yeah, thanks for that." John followed Den-Lay out into the snow and pushed his feet into the shoes, drawing the leather straps tight. Out in the brightness his fears seemed unreal. Could Lay be right? Had he really just been spooked at shadows? It didn’t matter; whether it was a monster or a fall into deep, powdery snow that had overtaken his friend, Rodney needed him and fast.

He pulled on his goggles and followed Den-Lay.

oOo

She reminded him more than ever of Melena. On Sateda he'd reached the rank of Specialist when kids on Earth were still at college, and Melena, at a similar age, had had a position of responsibility at the hospital. They didn't hang around on Sateda; you used your time to the full and always felt the pressure of the culling that would surely come, as come it had.

They had come to the old Healer's house and met Chen-Tai, who lay upon a couch, frail and yet with a sharp, bright eye.

Min opened the carved doors of a huge cabinet and filled a basket with supplies for her rounds. Teyla helped her and they exchanged notes on various remedies common to this culture and the Athosians. Ronon leant against the wall, in the glow of the brazier, and watched.

Sera-Min's long braid swung as she moved and her hands were quick and sure dispensing her remedies, using a set of scales to measure out doses and swiftly counting out pills and slipping them into small paper packets. Occasionally she took down a book and ran her index finger down the pages, her mouth compressed with a single-minded determination to do the best for her patients.

She suggested a warming tea before setting out and Teyla went with her into the kitchen to choose from the various leaves which grew alongside the Chak-tah berries and were dried and blended into teas.

"She is not for you."

Ronon had thought the old man was asleep.

He spoke again. "Sera-Min's life is here. She is not for you."

"I was only looking."

Chen-Tai wheezed a croaking laugh. "At your age it is but a short step from looking to wanting to needing."

Ronon shrugged. If he wanted her, maybe she'd want him.

"Has she told you our knowledge is sacred? That it is passed down as a sacred trust?"

"Yeah, she said that."

"And you have heard the townspeople call her 'Honoured Mother' haven't you?"

"Yeah."

Chen-Tai pulled himself further up the couch and leant forward as far as his frailty would allow. "We Healers are as committed to our work as the priests, and we are honoured with status equal to theirs. We also abide by their laws, passing our knowledge down to those with a vocation, rather than our offspring. Because we do not marry. Sera-Min will never be with a man."

"That's… hard."

"It is a sacrifice she has chosen to make; willingly, gladly. She would not give up the life that has called her. Not for anyone. Not for anything." The sharp eyes bored into his, warning and protective.

Ronon met the gaze for a moment, then nodded a curt acknowledgement. "I'll wait outside," he said. He sat down on a stone bench in the tiny garden overlooking the red roofs, which fell toward the valley floor like a drift of autumn leaves. But he didn’t see the red roofs or the bright blue sky or the dancing flags; his head drooped toward the dull grey pebbles beneath his feet.

oOo

One side of Rodney's face was numb, as well as the hand that was squashed beneath him, and all along his side, cold was beginning to penetrate his thick winter gear. What was he doing, lying in the snow? Had Ronon picked him up and dumped him in a snowdrift? It was the kind of thing he'd do.

Then Rodney remembered the huge, vague shape through the thick, distorting ice. It had tracked him, so that if he turned left the shape paralleled his movement and if he went right it did the same. It had herded him, like prey, the way it wanted him to go and the way he didn't want to go, because the ground was increasingly uneven, the ice crystals more haphazard and fragmentary and the reflected light brighter from below, where the sun shone on the snowy crater.

And then he had fallen, through the ice and out into spinning blue and white and the burning light of the sun and then the soft, freezing depths.

And now the light around him was dim and blue. Rodney sat up and a shower of snow fell on his head. He shook it off, but more fell and then more. Heavy splats fell on his body and then on his face as if he were being pelted with huge, soft snowballs. But as more and more fell, the weight grew and he panicked, kicking out with his legs and arms, pushing the snow away from his face, spitting as it fell into his mouth. He scraped the snow away from his face, but more fell and the blue light disappeared to blackness. Rodney inhaled the smothering coldness and choked and coughed and couldn’t tell which way was up.

He tried to cry out but there was snow in his mouth and he was drowning.

Then anger fuelled and directed his efforts, because there was no way that he, Rodney McKay, PhD, PhD, was going to end his illustrious existence buried in a snowdrift. He was Canadian, for God’s sake - he knew about snow! He stopped kicking and brought his hands in front of his face, pushing the snow away to create a bit of breathing room. He was completely covered and the snow had shut out the light, but it was still soft and easy to compact. He’d fallen into the crater and he might be in pretty deep, but he wasn’t crushed beneath the weight of an avalanche. And besides, Sheppard would be coming.

Rodney recognised that he was disoriented; a physicist who couldn't tell which way was up, couldn't distinguish the pull of gravitational force. He snorted into his tiny cave and felt the warm air blow back in his face. How long would he be able to breathe? How much air could penetrate drifted snow? Time for action.

He worked up some saliva and let it ooze out of his lips and dribble down his chin. Down; not sideways or heading up a nostril, but down. Rodney hm'd in pleased acknowledgement, closed his eyes and pretended to be a mole, or possibly some kind of turtle, pushing backward with his legs and making great swimming, scooping motions with his arms.

Snow pushed against his face and he swept it away and continued sweeping until his movements began to drag and he was gasping and fighting the snow away from his face once more and lights were sparking at the corners of his eyes. 

It would be easy to give up and let the softness cushion him into sleep. No. No, he needed to keep going.

Rodney forced his tired limbs into action once more and struggled and fought and then realised the world was dark blue and then pale blue and then there was a glimmer of white. He stretched forward, but his numb hands couldn't tell if they were in snow or air. He waved his arms in front of him and light broke through and he swore and slammed his eyes tightly shut against the lancing pain.

He continued hollowing out a space in front of him and wriggling forward, taking occasional glimpses through slitted eyes, until he lay, finally, in the free, clear mountain air, on top of the snow.

A numb hand bashed at his head, but his goggles were gone.

"Typical."

Rodney lay still for a few minutes, but though the sun was hot on the back of his neck, he was still dangerously cold and the softness beneath him was not the comforting blanket that his deluded senses told him to snuggle back into and sleep.

"I'd die of hypothermia while simultaneously getting a sunburn," he mumbled. "That's just ridiculous."

He'd fought so hard to get into the light, but now it was a second enemy and, as Rodney began to half crawl, half swim through the snow he could already feel the reflected rays bouncing up and scorching his face.

He stopped. Which way was he going? What was he doing, expending all this effort, when he might be heading out further into the crater? And where was Sheppard? Rodney pushed himself up, but his trembling arms collapsed and the snow was cold on his face once more.

He dragged his arms beneath him and pushed again, his head a mass of lead, pulled toward the planet's core. He was upright, just about, and hauled a trembling arm to his brow and opened his eyes beneath its shade.

Everything was white, blinding white except for vague drifting shapes floating and dancing in the vitreous humour of his eye. Rodney forced his drooping chin just a fraction of a degree higher and a rim of blue appeared at the upper limit of his vision. 

A rim of blue above the white, like one of those old enamel blue bowls Grandma McKay had used and she had died when he was very little, but he still remembered her gingerbread. 

Shapes floated, black dots against the white. He fell forward into the soft bed.

oOo

John could see nothing and he cursed the white snowsuits; white for stealth against an enemy, when they should have been bright, glowing orange to rescue a friend.

Then the tiniest movement caught his eye.

"There!"

"Yes, I see. Take care. The snow will be very soft."

They descended into the crater, taking great, slow strides in their cumbersome snowshoes, where John wanted to pump his legs into frantic action, or, better yet, ski in a hurtling descent, a few seconds’ glide bringing him to Rodney's location.

The slope steepened and they had to shuffle sideways, even more frustratingly slowly, or risk falling headfirst. But then at last it was shallow enough to make progress and John waddled, swinging his arms in the fastest gait he could manage, and probably the most undignified.

“McKay!”

The crumpled shape didn’t move. A trail of tumbled snow led from beneath the sheer drop from the Ice hall. He’d fallen into deep snow and been buried. Buried deep and John might never have found him.

“Rodney!” John ripped his feet free of their bindings and fell to his knees at his friend’s side. He was face down in the snow. “Help me, Lay!”

“Is he alive?”

“Yes, dammit, of course he’s alive!” He rolled Rodney over and pulled his head and shoulders up into his lap. His face was white, his lips blue.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” John felt for a pulse in Rodney’s neck. There. It was there. “Yes, he’s alive. But he’s freezing cold. We need to get him out of this snow.”

“We can use these.” Lay held up the spare pair of snowshoes he’d brought.

“He can’t walk.”

“They fasten together. See? They can be used to carry someone a short distance.” Lay tied the snowshoes end to end and they slid Rodney onto the makeshift stretcher.

Rodney’s pale face reflected the harsh sunlight and John had to squint even through his goggles. He began to take them off to give to his friend, but Den-Lay stopped him.

“No, see, I have a spare covering.” He wrapped the fabric loosely around Rodney’s face.

“We’ll have to take him to the temple,” said John. It had been cold, even in the stone-built area and there had been no fire, only the oil lamp. But it was the only option and Rodney needed warmth, quickly.

John gripped the curved wooden edge of the snowshoe and straightened up. It sagged, but held and they shuffled forward, then picked up speed, weaving from side to side in great flapping strides. Rodney’s body rocked slackly with the swaying movement and where they had to sidestep up the slope John’s arms and back burned and ached with the strain and he was constantly worried that he’d drop the stretcher and his friend would roll off and fall back down the slope. Rodney didn’t stir.

Then suddenly, more hands were helping, the weight was taken off John’s aching shoulders, and they were swiftly at the top of the crater.

“What has happened here?” John recognised the voice of Mira-Fan, swathed as she was in furs, her face covered with an ornately embroidered fabric.

“He fell. From the temple. He’s freezing cold. We need to get him inside.”

Before John had finished speaking, Mira-Fan had taken off her fur coat and draped it over Rodney. She tucked it around him and then spoke sharply to her attendants, who began to bear Rodney away.

“Where are they going?” The stretcher was making swift progress, but away from the temple and toward the mountain peak. That wasn’t the way to the path back down to Shen-lay-tahn.

“Peace, Colonel Sheppard. He will be carried the quickest way back to the High Halls.”

“What? What way?”

“Come, follow me.”

The snow was firm. John kicked off his snowshoes and handed them to Den-Lay. Then he followed Mira-Fan.

“We came by the path up the mountainside. There’s another way?”

“Indeed. The path you came by is picturesque, but not practical. Those of us who worship regularly at the temple would not wish to expose ourselves to the sun’s glare so frequently. We use another route.”

Rodney had disappeared, but the footprints were clear in front of John, and Mira-Fan strode confidently forward. They rounded a shoulder of the mountain and, sheltered beneath an ornate pitch-roofed gateway was the entrance to a tunnel.

oOo

The blinding glare was gone, but so was the restful lassitude and Rodney shivered hard and couldn’t seem to stop. He was being shaken up and down and what was that all about? Why wouldn’t they leave him alone? The voices around him were strange and something furry prickled at his juddering chin.

The walls were of rock, then suddenly they were smooth, dark red paint, and the dry wood-and-incense scent told him that he was back in the High Halls in Shen-lay-tahn. He was carried into his room and bundled out of his cold, damp clothes and into dry warm ones in an undignified manner totally unbefitting a scientist of his stature. His protests went unheeded. 

They wouldn’t just go away and let him sleep until he’d drunk something warm, which wasn’t even a decent brew of chak-tah but something that tasted of bitter herbs. They were slapping something greasy and nasty on his face and neck and any exposed bit of skin that the sun might have burnt and then finally they left him alone and he disappeared to a place where all his energy bars were frozen and kept refreezing, even though he arranged them neatly in a circle around a glowing ZPM.

And there was a shadow in the glowing orangey-yellow depths. It shifted and moved and he didn’t know what it was, but it was definitely after his energy bars.

“No!”

“Rodney?”

“What?” Shapes flickered above him; black and orange, dancing and leaping. “No, go away. You can’t have them!”

“Rodney, you are safe.”

“What? Oh.” Teyla’s face moved into view, obscuring the patterns on the ceiling.

“Hey, buddy. You feeling okay?” John’s face joined Teyla’s.

Rodney thought about John’s question. “Hmm. Warm. Face hurts.” His gaze fell to one side, where one of the tall cylindrical braziers glowed through its mesh covering, the flames within casting flickering shapes on the ceiling. “Eyes hurt,” he continued. And concluded his diagnostic with, “Hungry.”

“Fair enough,” said John.

“Can you sit up?” Teyla asked. “There is bread and cheese and fruit.”

Rodney made the effort, sliding up the bed, his limbs still heavy with sleep. He yawned. A tray was placed on his lap and his hand began picking things up and posting them in through his mouth without him having to think about it too much, which was good because his brain needed fuel before it took on much in the way of activity.

There were three mattresses on the floor and three teammates watching him.

“It’s not feeding time at the zoo, you know,” he snapped, between bites.

John smiled and flopped down on his mattress. “That’s no popsicle, that’s Rodney McKay.”

Ronon snorted.

Teyla remained sitting cross-legged on the mat next to his bed. But that was okay, because it was Teyla, so she was there to help rather than watch for opportunities to mock the afflicted.

He swallowed a juicy fruity thing which had the yielding yet firm texture of a lychee. “So, is this a debrief, sit-rep kind of thing?”

“If you’re up to it.” John sat up, scratched his chest through his rumpled shirt and ran his hand through his already mussed hair.

“I am if you are. What time is it?”

“Late.”

“Why aren’t I in the infirmary? I would have thought hypothermia called for one of you to scuttle down to the Gate and request a Jumper.”

“Ah, yeah, you know that smiling sunshine thing we had going on?” John glanced at the shuttered window. “We’ve got some pretty angry weather out there now.”

“Really? What, howling gale and blizzard type thing?”

“You guessed it. I wouldn’t take a Jumper up in it, even if it was safe to trot down and dial up Atlantis.”

“Didn’t Elizabeth dial us up?”

“Yeah, but you were looking okay by then, and the wind had already blown up pretty strong.”

“Oh. Okay.” He chewed on a piece of bread. “So, my question is, what the hell was that in Superman’s ice palace and who was responsible for it?”

“You saw it?”

“Why d’you think I took the ‘arcing out into the clear blue sky’ route, rather than exiting safely through the door?”

John shrugged. “You could’ve just got lost and panicked.”

Rodney glared over his mouthful of cheese.

“What was it that you saw, Rodney?” Teyla shuffled closer to the bed, drawing a patterned blanket around her shoulders.

“I don’t know. Just a big shape that moaned and groaned and herded me out through the trapdoor. It’s all a bit vague, really. I suppose that’s what comes of being dropped into the quick freeze.”

“I saw an eye.”

“What?”

“An eye. I heard the thing and saw it through the ice. Then there was a break, between two columns and I saw an eye.”

“Oh. I was hoping I’d imagined it.”

“Don’t think so.”

“So, what, we’re talking ancient revenge of the Ancients, the old Vey-tek-lah?”

Ronon, lounging on his back, said casually, “I’ll kill it.”

“If it is thousands of years old, I would imagine it would be quite difficult to kill,” said Teyla.

“Wraith are old. We kill them.”

“Hold on a minute,” said John. “Let’s just think about this.”

“About how convenient it is?” Rodney waved his hands in the air, bread in one, cheese in the other. “The Vey-tek-lah will rise and punish unbelievers!” He let his hands fall and popped the cheese into his mouth. “And surprise, surprise, out pops your not-so-friendly neighbourhood monster.”

“You think it’s a fake?” asked Ronon.

“I don’t know what it is,” said John. “We’ve seen some pretty kooky stuff in our time. Who knows? But I think we need to take a look at the facts and think this whole thing through. If there is someone controlling this Vey-tek monster whatever, we should be able to work out who.”

Rodney chortled. “Sure thing, Fred, let’s solve this mystery!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The gang are on the case, ready to look for clues and find out what’s really going on!
> 
> Thank you for reading. Please leave comments and kudos!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The team are on the trail of a mystery… What clues will they find? And what tricky situations will they get themselves into? Find out now!

"If I'm Fred, who're you - Shaggy? No, wait, you lost your snow goggles, didn't you? That makes you Velma!"

"Oh, ha ha. Anyways, I take back the Fred - you're far more like a Great Dane, the way you bound around."

"No way, I'm not the one who needs Scooby Snacks every five minutes!"

"Scooby Doo was a greedy dog! I'm a hypoglycemic scientist!"

"John? Rodney?" Teyla's mild enquiry was edged with impatience. "Perhaps we should sleep if we're not going to discuss our situation."

"Yeah, give it a rest, you two."

John nudged Ronon with his foot. "Don't knock Scooby Doo. Those meddling kids always unmasked the crook in the end."

"Okay, let's be methodical." Rodney sat up straighter in bed and punched his pillow into a more comfortable support. His cheeks and his nose were red from sunburn, but John was glad to see he was pretty much his normal self. "Let's assume someone is behind the appearance of the monster-of-the-week, whether it be a real bona fide living-and-breathing monster or some kind of construct. Who stands to benefit?"

"What, from scaring us away?"

"I'm not scared."

"Of course you're not scared, Chewie. But in theory," said John. "If we were scared away there'd be no deal, no trade goods coming in from Atlantis. That sounds like a lose-lose to me."

"There are certainly some people who do not wish us to trade here," said Teyla.

"Kesh-Ven," said Rodney. "The crazy priest. And he was on the spot. It's him. Definitely."

"Maybe," said John. "But we're trying to be methodical. Let's consider anyone with a motive and/or an opportunity."

"They'd need both."

"I know that. But we might not have all the facts yet."

"We'll have to look for clues!" Rodney rubbed his hands together.

"We might well have to look for clues," agreed John, grinning at the gleam in Rodney’s eye.

"Councillor Dol-Tuk is not happy with the agreement," said Teyla.

"Grumpy man?" said Rodney. "What's his motive? And how would he have got up to the temple without us seeing him?"

"I'm pretty sure half the town could have got up there without us knowing," said John. "Do you remember being carried back through the tunnels?"

"Vaguely." Rodney frowned. "They're lava tubes, aren't they? This whole mountain is, or was, a volcano."

"Like the one on Taranis?" asked Teyla. "Is this place unstable?"

"No, that was a supervolcano. This is just your average, common-or-garden volcano. And it's extinct. I think."

"Way to be reassuring, McKay," said John.

"Look, in the absence of tremors or other seismic activity or, let me see, maybe actual spewing lava, let's just assume the thing's dead, okay?"

"Sure, let's assume." John rubbed his jaw and stifled a yawn. "So, Dol-Tuk? What's his deal?"

"He seems inclined to veto any proposal which Mira-Fan is in favour of," said Teyla. "He believes she won the election unfairly."

"I don't see why getting rid of us would help him," said Rodney.

"He wants to give the stuff to the Gods." Ronon lay on his back, one leg crooked up and balanced on the other.

"Right, so that's motive and potential opportunity," said Rodney briskly. "Who else? Our illustrious leader, found wandering the corridors at night with strange moanings in the air?"

"Did the creature you encountered make the same sounds?" Teyla looked between John and Rodney.

John shivered and pulled his blankets round his shoulders. "Maybe. What d'you think, McKay?"

"Difficult to say. It was a totally different acoustic. I'm marking Mira-Fan down as highly suspicious."

"Why would she do it?" Ronon asked. 

There was silence. The metal of the brazier ticked and the coals shifted.

"Motive unknown," said Rodney. "But still suspect. And she was up there today. She could've given her attendants the slip. Speaking of people on the spot, what about our friend Den-grinning-Lay?"

"Nah," said John. "Wasn't Lay."

"Why not?"

"I heard him calling when you were being hunted by the monster."

"So? He could've been egging it on."

"Nah, he was calling to me. Anyway, he seems like a good guy."

"Oh, well, then that's a watertight case! He's totally in the clear! A good guy? Come on, Sheppard!"

"Okay, so why would he do it? He's happy with the trade deal, he likes us, what's his motive?"

"He smiles too much," said Ronon.

"Yeah, I know, and prays too much," said John. "Those aren't motives."

"He was, nevertheless, present when the monster appeared," said Teyla.

"I'm putting him down as a suspect," said Rodney. "In my black book. If I had one. Who else?"

Teyla shuffled and glanced sideways at Ronon.

“What’s up, Teyla?” It was unlike her not to speak her mind, John thought.

“It is just that Sera-Min has a motive to stop our trade deal.”

Ronon sat up suddenly and glared at Teyla.

“Who, the scared-looking medic? Why? She gets medical stuff and visits from our own special voodoo witch doctor to give her some pointers.”

“Teyla?” John prompted.

“The position of town Healer is equivalent to a priest,” she explained. “It is a sacred role with sacred knowledge.”

Ronon rumbled warningly.

“She told us herself, Ronon. It is possible she would lose face if she were seen to defer to others’ expertise.”

“Yeah and she also said she’d do what was best for her patients.”

“Why are you getting your dreads in a twist? Oh!” Rodney rolled his eyes knowingly. “Conan’s got the hots for the voodoo priestess.”

“McKay!”

“Cool it, guys.”

Ronon hunched an angry shoulder, turning away from his team. Rodney opened his mouth, a smirk twisting his lips, which dropped away at John’s pointed frown.

“It seems like Sera-Min might have a motive, but she was with you guys when we were up there, so she has an alibi.”

“Yeah, your girlfriend’s safe from my list.”

“Rodney!” Teyla added her quelling glare to John’s. “As I said, Sera-Min is the equivalent of a priest, and as such, has sworn lifelong celibacy.”

“Oh! Really?” Rodney picked at some crumbs on the bedcovers. “Well, I suppose it would keep her focussed on the job.”

John noticed that Rodney’s eyes were shadowed above his red-tinged cheeks. “Yeah, and we’ll need to be focussed tomorrow.” He looked at his watch. “Today. So let’s see if we can get some sleep.”

“Hmm, yes,” Rodney agreed. “Better be alert for any more attacks, if someone’s decided to get rid of us.” He shuffled down the bed and pulled up his blankets. “Especially if we’re cut off from the Gate for a while.

Ronon lay down and Teyla rose gracefully from Rodney’s bedside, dropped some more coals into the little door in the side of the brazier and returned to her mattress. She glanced at John as she arranged her bedding and he jerked his head toward Rodney. Teyla nodded - message understood. She’d be watching, vigilant for any more attacks on their teammate.

oOo

It was early and Ronon had been tempted to get up and run along the corridors, but thought the pounding of his feet might not be too well received. Outside the snow was still falling heavily, whipped into a frenzied blizzard by the howling wind.

There was a knock on the door. Sheppard grunted a response but nobody entered.

“Go see who that is yeah, Chewie?” He buried his face in his pillow once more.

Ronon flung back his blankets. The brazier had gone out. He’d light it again in a minute. Outside, there was a tray on the floor, four bowls of a porridge-like substance with a very slight green tinge, and a pot of chak-tah, its smoky richness rising in spirals of steam in the cold air. Whoever had left it was gone. Ronon stuck his finger in one of the bowls of porridge and licked it. Not bad. A bit sweet for his tastes. 

His stomach growled eagerly, so he put the bowl to his lips and gulped a large mouthful, then picked up the tray and carried it back into the room, stepping carefully between the scattered mattresses and belongings of his team.

“Who was it?” John still had his face in his pillow.

“Breakfast.”

“Really?” Rodney sat up hurriedly and patted his lap. “Room service. Excellent. Hand it over, then.”

Teyla sat up and stretched. “It is still early. I thought we were to take breakfast with our hosts as a preliminary to the ceremony.”

“Maybe they’ve called it off for today. Most people are probably snowed in. What’ve we got there?” John stood up, pulling his blankets with him like a cloak. “Oatmeal? Why’s it green?”

Ronon set the tray down on Rodney’s nightstand.

“Come on then, Conan, give it here. You’re not planning to eat the lot yourself, are you?”

A memory flickered at the edges of Ronon’s mind - a memory from his time as a runner. He’d been hungry; hungrier than he’d ever been since that time.

He passed a bowl to Rodney.

“Spoon?” Fingers snapped.

Ronon remembered a planet just coming out of its winter cycle, tiny green shoots poking through the damp earth. He passed Rodney a spoon. There hadn’t been much to eat and hunger had been a constant pain in his gut, a trembling in his limbs and a weakness in his mind. John took a bowl off the tray and passed it to Teyla.

“Mmm, smell’s good,” said Rodney. “I bet it's ‘just right’. Unlike this planet.” He dug his spoon in.

Ronon had eaten something - some plant, some root - and then he’d been ill. But before that…

He knocked the spoon out of Rodney’s hand. “Don’t eat it!”

Rodney’s bowl fell off his lap and creamy-green slop oozed down his leg and began to soak into the blankets.

“Ronon, what the hell?”

“It’s poisoned!”

“It’s what?” John looked down at his own bowl and then at Teyla.

“Have you eaten any?”

John shook his head. “No.”

“Nor I,” said Teyla.

“And I certainly haven’t. What a mess.”

Ronon rubbed his lips, which were building from a tingle to a burn. His tongue was burning too and his finger, where he’d dipped it into the bowl, was faintly red.

“Ronon?” John put his bowl back on the tray. “Did you eat any?”

“A bit. Hardly any. Should be okay.”

“Should be okay, he says! ‘I’ve just been poisoned but that’s fine!’”

“How did you know?” asked John, his brows lowered in concern. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’ve had it before, or something like it. Sweet, a bit strange. Makes your mouth tingle, then burn, then you get -” He broke off as a sharp pain twisted just below his ribs. “You get cramps.” He let his legs fold beneath him and knelt on his mattress, bent over the grinding ache.

Someone knelt next to him and he felt an arm across his shoulders. “It sounds like teerzen shoots,” said Teyla. “They can be used to make medicine, but can be dangerous.”

“Should be okay.” Ronon gritted his teeth. Sweat sprung out on his brow. “I ate the raw shoots once and I was okay… kinda okay… in the end.”

“We should get Carson! He needs a doctor!”

“No way,” said John. “Not in this storm.”

“Then, Whatsername - the mini-series woman.”

“Sera-min,” said Teyla.

The arm around him stiffened and fell away.

“What’s up, Teyla?”

Ronon sat up and pressed his folded arms against his stomach. Sheppard stared at Teyla, whose mouth was compressed and who clasped opposite elbows, her knuckles nearly as white as Ronon’s.

“Teyla?”

“I do not like to think ill of anyone so seemingly innocent,” she said.

Ronon jerked in pain and his eyes watered. He rode out the cramp, folding forward once more. It peaked and then faded. “Not Sera-Min.” It was difficult to get his breath. “She wouldn’t.”

“I saw the medicine, as I was helping her to prepare for her rounds.” Teyla’s tone was bleak. “And in the kitchen were remedies in their raw form. Including a plant as like to teerzen as I have ever seen.”

oOo

John took Teyla to one side as Ronon lay on his mattress, his body twitching and contorting in pain.

“What’s the low-down on this teerzen stuff really? Is he gonna be okay? Because if Ronon needs Carson, I’ll have a go at getting to the Gate, storm or no storm.”

“No, John. Ronon is right. It will be unpleasant for a while, but he will recover.”

“He must’ve only had a taste. Rodney would’ve downed the whole lot in one if Ronon hadn’t stopped him.”

“It is not usually considered a deadly poison. But in such quantities…”

“So, is someone trying to kill us or scare us off?”

“I do not know. But they will not succeed. Will they?”

“No. No, we want this deal.”

Ronon turned again, twisting the bedding around himself.

“What can we do for him? Is there some kind of antidote?”

“He needs to drink,” said Teyla. “Plenty of water. And milk would help too.”

“Okay, I’ll go and see what I can scare up.”

“You should not go alone.”

John chewed his lip. Rodney had fallen asleep again and Ronon was in no state to defend himself. “No, I shouldn’t. But I’m going to.”

He ignored Teyla’s protests, got dressed and checked his sidearm. Then he slipped out of the door, stood for a moment, listening, and then moved as stealthily as he could down the dark corridor.

It was very cold and the shutters over the windows were tightly closed, a meagre veil of dull grey light seeping in through small gaps. John was glad of the dark. It meant he would easily be able to sink into the shadows if he saw anyone coming. But he didn’t. The corridors were empty and the only sounds were the howl of the snow-laden wind, the dash of frozen flurries against the shutters, and John’s own footsteps.

He gripped the cold metal of his sidearm, paused, listened, moved - and again, paused and listened. Nothing. He descended a small spiral staircase, his back against the outer wall to give himself the widest field of view. At the bottom was a landing and then a broader staircase running down to the main entrance next to the reception rooms. There must be a way to the kitchens from there and the food they’d been served had always been hot, so the kitchens couldn’t be far. But where was everyone?

John’s boots thudded hollowly as he descended the stairs. The entrance hall had no feeling of life about it. The hanging lanterns were vague shadows, swinging gently in the draught and the reception room where they usually had breakfast was silent. He went in. The low table was empty, the seat-cushions neatly arranged on the floor. John let his weapon fall to his side and unhooked the latch on one of the shutters.

The freezing draught around the edge of the wood became a scouring blast as he slid the shutter back, and fat, frenzied flakes of snow blinded him and instantly froze the top layer of his skin. John slammed the shutter closed. He wiped his face on his sleeve. Panes of glass, he thought. They should’ve traded glass rather than medical supplies.

It didn’t look like there’d be much action in the town today. Did it normally snow this hard? In his brief, face-freezing glimpse, John had seen high drifts built up against walls, and even on roofs, despite the howling gale. There had certainly been no people about. They’d all be holed up in their houses, he thought.

Making his way to the back of the entrance hall, he found a narrow doorway with steps descending. He went down and found himself in a large, square room with a central table - a kitchen, or as much as he could see of one in just the light from the door he’d left open. The fireplace was dark, the grate full of ash without even the slightest orange glow. There was a lantern on the table. John lit it and the light flooded across empty surfaces, all food and utensils carefully stowed away; a well-ordered kitchen, but he would have preferred it with lots of activity and heaped plates of food ready for hungry guests.

A clattering sound from behind him brought John’s weapon swiftly up to firing position. He swung round, pressing himself against the cupboard to cover himself from the door to the entrance hall. The sound came again - a rhythmic stamping. John slid up the stairway, back to the wall, eyes on the rectangle of grey above him.

Somebody spoke, the words unintelligible. He reached the top of the stairs and eased around the threshold. A furred figure stood before the main door, surrounded by clumps of melting snow stamped from heavy boots. The figure turned and pushed back its hood. John let his hands fall and holstered his weapon. It was one of the servants.

“Hello, there.”

“Oh! Good morning, Colonel Sheppard. I am Ten-Ling. I have come to see to your needs.”

“Thanks. Er… Where is everyone?”

Ten-Ling unbuttoned the front of his coat, revealing more layers beneath. “Ah, last night the storm was bad - far worse than we usually experience - and there has been much damage to buildings in the town. During the night, some families had to leave their homes, some were trapped and had to be dug out.”

“Really? Are they okay?”

“Yes. All is well now. But there will be no ceremony today. Mira-Fan was overseeing the work for most of the night and she has retired to her home lower in the town.” Ten-Ling passed John and jogged briskly down the stairs.

“I will soon have the fire lit and hot food ready for you and your team. Is there anything in particular you require?”

“Yeah, is there any milk?” For now, he would say nothing about Ronon’s condition. It seemed wise not to reveal his team’s weakness, and he didn't want to have to find an excuse for refusing medical help.

“Of course.” Ten-Ling bustled to a larder and drew out an enamel pitcher. “A cup for yourself?”

“I’ll take the pitcher, if that’s okay.”

“Yes.” Ten-Ling eyed the prosaic pitcher doubtfully, as if such things weren’t suitable for guests. “But I could put out a selection of food and drink in the dining room for you and your colleagues. A little snow should not lower our standards of hospitality.”

“That’s okay.” John took the milk. “I’ll take this and if you could bring us some food up to our room, that’d be great.” 

Ten-Ling frowned but murmured agreement. Having rejected the civilised conventions of guest etiquette, John felt that he’d lowered himself beneath reproach. He tried a winning smile, raised the pitcher in salute and departed.

oOo

Rodney was bored. Breakfast had kept him occupied for a few minutes. It had been brought by a funny little disapproving man who'd glared with outrage at Rodney's porridge-stained bedclothes. Sheppard had told him to go home, with entirely false concern for his welfare, Rodney decided. "Just leave out some food - we'll manage," his team leader had said blithely.

For quite a while after that, Rodney had been distracted by worry for his poisoned teammate as he groaned and writhed. But Ronon, having gradually (and noisily) consumed most of the pitcher of milk, was now asleep or at least motionless, his breathing relaxed after the jerks and gasps that had been very frightening, given their isolated state, far from Carson's dubious, but always surprisingly welcome ministrations.

Rodney stuffed his tablet back in his pack, having tired of both minesweeper and solitaire.

"So, are we snooping, or what?"

Black eyebrows described innocent curves.

"Oh, come on Sheppard. You've got the suspicious servant out of the way. Let's go."

"To look for clues, Velma?"

"Yes, _Daphne_. And snacks. It's been a while since breakfast."

"Are you up to it?"

Rodney touched his sunburnt cheek. "A little singed, but other than that, fully recovered and bouncing full of eagerness."

"Eagerness for snacks."

Rodney shrugged. "I can investigate and eat at the same time."

"Teyla?"

Rodney tried out his most appealing smile, copied from Sheppard. 

Teyla rolled her eyes and waved at the door. "Go. I will stay here and watch Ronon."

She might as well have said, 'Go out and play.' Rodney erupted from the bed, scattering crumbs, and threw on more clothes over his night things. “What? It’s cold. The more layers the better, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Have you checked your weapon?”

Rodney checked his Beretta. A full magazine and the safety on. He holstered it. “Ready.”

“Okay.” John opened the door and checked up and down the corridor. “Come on, then. And no shooting at shadows. Or alien mice.”

“As if I would.”

John turned to the right and began moving stealthily, his back to the wall, scanning up and down the corridor.

“Sheppard. Snacks.”

He reversed course, shooting Rodney a grumpy look.

“Do we really need to do the whole Cagney and Lacey, Starsky and Hutch thing?”

“What?”

Rodney flattened himself against the wall, his Beretta held in both hands, pointing upward. He narrowed his eyes into what he thought might be the look of a hardened cop on the trail of a killer.

“SOP in dangerous territory, Rodney. You know that.”

“It’s a house. How dangerous can it be?”

“Poisoning? Remember that? Crazy sounds in the night?”

“We don’t know that the moaning and groaning was anything sinister.”

“Says he who was chased by an ice monster.”

“An ice monster?”

“Well, what would you call it?”

“Something better than that.”

“We’re going with ice monster.”

“Rodney! John! I can hear you bickering from in here!”

Rodney looked at John, who smirked back. “Go on, then, Dirty Harry. Do your stuff.”

John resumed his stealthy progress.

Rodney followed behind, ‘watching their six’, which consisted of empty, silent corridors. He was glad he’d put on as many layers as possible and even then, he felt that his own personal ‘six’ was in danger of becoming uncomfortably chilled.

The kitchen was silent too, but for the falling of a half-burnt log in the fireplace. John threw on another few logs and poked it up into a blaze. On the table were several cloth-covered shapes. Rodney set to work pulling off the shrouds, and revealed a stack of flatbreads, a joint of meat, a large block of cheese and some earthenware jars with wooden lids. He prised off one of the lids with a handy knife, flakes of sealing wax scattering over the table. The acrid sting of vinegar prickled at his nose.

“Pickled somethings,” he said.

“Yeah? Looks like sandwiches are on the menu.”

“Shall we make some for Ronon and Teyla?”

“Later. When we’ve had a look around.” John picked up a knife and carved some slices of the meat.

Rodney laid out a flatbread, sliced some cheese and arranged it neatly and covered it with a layer of bright pink pickle. He placed another flatbread on top. High in the wall behind him, the shutters rattled. He turned around. The shutters rattled again, accompanied by a rattling spatter of hail. “It’s not getting any better out there.” He took some slices of meat off John’s pile and popped a piece of pickled thing into his mouth to be going on with. It was very sharp and crunchy.

“No.”

John had begun with a layer of meat. He hesitated over the pickle jar, sniffing and frowning.

“What? What? Oh, God, this stuff’s been lying around all morning!” His mouth tingled, but he’d already swallowed the pickle. He put a hand on his stomach, another on his forehead and stepped away from the table. “I’ve been poisoned, haven’t I?”

“It was a sealed jar, Rodney.” John flicked one of the pieces of wax with his finger.

“Oh. Yes.” Rodney let his hands fall and resumed his place at the table, hovering protectively over his sandwich-in-progress. “What about the meat, though? Or the cheese?”

John shook his head. “I’ll try a coupla pieces. But it’d be pretty difficult to poison a big, solid object. Better if you can stir it in, make sure your victim has a good chance of getting some of the good stuff… or bad stuff.” He broke off a tiny piece of cheese and pulled off a scrap of meat.

“What, you’re just going to ‘suck it and see’?”

John shrugged. “I won’t swallow.”

Rodney slapped another flatbread on top of his growing sandwich, because if it wasn’t poisoned this was going to be one hell of a snack. He glanced up at his friend, anxiously. John’s throat wobbled. “You just swallowed.”

“Did not.”

“Did too. I saw you.”

The shutters rattled again and the wind whistled in the cracks.

“I think it’s okay.”

“Have you swallowed them? You’ve swallowed them, haven’t you?”

“Uh-uh.” John opened his mouth.

“Ew, thank you. I didn’t need to see that, Sheppard.”

“Told you I hadn’t swallowed.” His throat moved. “Have now.”

“You didn’t give them long.”

“Long enough. Ronon felt it straight away.”

“Hmm.” Rodney layered on more cheese and meat. “So, whoever the poisoner is, I’m thinking they got in through the lava tubes.”

“Mm. Me too. We need to see where they go.”

The wind moaned through the halls above. Rodney moaned around a massive bite of his sandwich.

"Good?" John scrunched through the layers of his monster snack. Bits of pickle fell out.

"Mmph." Maybe that bite had been too big. It felt like swallowing a boulder. Satisfying, though.

The gale outside seemed to be picking up even more force. A door slammed somewhere overhead.

John tensed. He slowly lowered his sandwich, licking his fingers, and put it down on the table.

"What?"

"Sh." He waved his hand, a sharp gesture for silence.

Above, there was a distant rattling thump, then a low, vibrating groan.

Rodney grabbed a cloth off the table, wrapped the remains of his sandwich and stuffed it in the pocket of his fleece. "Someone else in the house?" he whispered.

"Maybe." John was back to military stealth mode. "Let's go see."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John and Rodney are setting off to explore the spooky, creaky house - what will they find? Read all about it in tomorrow’s installment! But now I’m feeling hungry - time for a jaw-stretching sandwich? 
> 
> Thank you for commenting and kudosing!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for John and Rodney to set off and explore the creepy old house. And you just know that a spot of poisoning’s not going to keep Ronon down for long!

The timbers of the old house creaked and groaned in protest at the pounding they were taking from the storm. Perhaps that was all it had been. Old buildings made noises, particularly old wooden buildings that had been built piecemeal over a thousand-odd years by people of varying expertise. 

John peered along the line of his sidearm, wishing he’d thought to bring his P-90. He’d stowed it under a floorboard beneath his bed, because if you fired one of those things in a house made of wood, you’d better be prepared for it to go straight through the walls and make holes in anyone or anything in its path, which hadn’t seemed like appropriate force for a peaceful trading mission involving mainly banqueting and ceremony. 

But things had changed. They were in a bad position tactically; cut off from the Gate, alone in a labyrinthine building, empty but for themselves, and no way to easily get help from any of the town authorities should help be needed. If anyone was trying to scare them off, or harm them, now would be the time.

“I can’t hear anything. Can you hear anything? Sheppard?”

“Not with you talking, no.”

There was a scratch and a thump from roughly two o’clock. The passage was a dead end, but for one door. John turned the handle slowly, his sidearm raised.

He looked at Rodney.

Rodney nodded.

John flung the door open. A tall shape lurched out of the room, and descended toward them. Rodney squeaked and leapt back, firing once and then again, and the shots thundered in the small space.

"McKay! Stop!" John flattened himself against the end wall until Rodney had stopped firing. "Jeez, Rodney, what the hell? You coulda shot me!"

"I was being attacked!"

"By skis, Rodney! You were being attacked by skis."

"Oh."

John nudged the splintered pieces of wood with one boot. "I guess you killed 'em."

"Ha ha." Rodney sniffed, flicked the safety back on and holstered his weapon. "It's been a very tense mission. You can't blame me for having an over-sensitive trigger finger."

"Yeah, right." John picked up the damaged skis and hurled them back in the cupboard. There were a good few pairs in there; maybe he and his team'd have time to try them out, once they'd solved their little monster problem.

John's radio hissed. "Teyla to John. John, are you there?"

"We're here."

"I heard weapons' fire."

"It's fine. Rodney just killed a ski."

"Oh." There was a static-filled pause. "Have you found anything important?"

"Not yet. We might check out the lava tubes. Probably be out of radio contact."

"Do not get lost."

"We won't. Sheppard out." He closed the cupboard door firmly. "Okay, so that was a bust. But there still should be a way through here somewhere." 

John ran his fingers along the curtained end wall, pushing the heavy fabric back against the panelling beneath. Then he turned and pressed the thick tapestry on the side wall. It was scratchy and his fingertips became black with dirt. Further down the corridor, Rodney patted at the hangings.

“Whoa!” He disappeared with a tearing sound.

“McKay?” John ran toward his friend’s position. A bundle of fabric struggled on the floor, its protests muffled but vehement. John crouched and flipped the heavy folds off his friend. “Found the way, then, Rodney?”

“Yes.” He sneezed and sniffed. “And probably triggered a raft of dangerous allergies. Don’t they ever clean these things?”

John silently passed him a handkerchief. The passage Rodney had revealed was short and ended in an ascending staircase, as steep as a step ladder.

“Well? Are we going up?”

The noises hadn’t come from above. But the walls were of unpainted wood with no other way. Should they go back? Again, there were sounds from beyond the wall - a long scrape followed by a thud.

“Hello? Is there anybody there?”

“Don’t make it sound like a seance, Sheppard. This place is spooky enough.”

Something knocked at the panelled side wall. Rodney jumped.

“Hello?”

No response.

“There’s nothing here. Let’s go.”

“There’s something,” said John. He studied the passageway. The floor was uncarpeted - no rugs or coverings of any kind. And at the foot of the staircase, where its sides met the floor, were two short parallel lines, scraped into the wooden floorboards.

“Give me a hand here, Rodney.”

“What? Oh, you think it lifts up? Like one of those loft ladders?”

They crouched either side of the staircase and lifted. It swung up much more easily than they expected and hit John beneath his chin. He swore.

“Are you okay?”

“Mm.” His jaw throbbed.

“Is it bleeding?”

He took his hand away. “Yes.”

“Much?”

“No.”

“The stairs must be on a counterweight. Clever.”

“Brilliant,” said John. He’d given Rodney his last clean handkerchief.

The ladder had retreated toward the ceiling, with plenty of clearance beneath.

“I wonder how you get it down?” Rodney stretched up, his fingers falling short of the steps.

“Don’t worry about that. Check out the end wall. See if there’s a way through.”

The heel of one hand pressed hard against his jaw, his weapon in his other hand, John watched as Rodney knocked and pushed at the wall. It had a criss-cross pattern of mouldings, forming diamond shaped sections.

“Oh, this is so cool. One of these is bound to -” The section pushed in, the wall swung back and the passage was suddenly full of flapping black wings and high-pitched, squeaks, some of them Rodney’s.

“Get it off! Get it off!”

“Keep still, Rodney.” A wing hit John in the face. He smacked at the creature and it squealed.

“Get off!” Rodney swung his hand, the bat-thing dodged and then both of John’s cheeks were stinging.

“McKay!” John grabbed a flailing wing, pulled the creature away and hurled it down the corridor. If it came back for another go, he’d weight the damn thing down with some lead. It didn’t. The bat-thing gave a reproachful shriek and flapped away into the gloom.

“Ugh,” commented Rodney. “A bat. Probably vampiric. There’d better not be any more.”

“Mm. Well, there must be something else. We didn’t hear _that_ thing from all the way down in the kitchen.” John took his hand away from his face. It seemed to have stopped bleeding.

“That’ll probably attract more vampire bats.”

“Shut up, McKay.”

Rodney humphed. “Come on, then. High time we found some useful clues.”

Beyond the secret door the walls changed from wood panelling to bare rock.

“Looks like a lava tube,” said John.

“Yes. Another hidden entrance. It makes you wonder how many more there are. Hey, here's a lantern.”

“Convenient.”

Rodney lit the lantern and long striated shadows sprung to life. “Look, these ridges are from the lava flow,” he said. “From where it cooled and melted again.”

"Didn't know you were into geology, Rodney."

"One of the lesser sciences, certainly. One can't help picking up a few facts, however.”

The weak glow of the lantern didn’t penetrate very far into the darkness. They could get lost if there were many branches. “Keep your eyes peeled,” said John.

Loose bits of stone crunched under their boots. A cold draft blew in their faces. The lantern light flickered.

“There’s nothing here.” Rodney lifted the lantern higher, but revealed only more gently curving tunnel. “Maybe we should go back.”

“A bit further. Then if we don’t find anything we’ll go and check out the rest of the house. Hey, it’s getting wider.”

The tunnel broadened out and met converging entrances on either side.

“Seriously, Sheppard. Let’s go back. We’re going to get lost down here.”

John picked up a rock and drew an arrow in the dirt pointing back the way they’d come. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic.”

“Need a Scooby Snack?”

“Oh, ha ha. But as it happens…” Rodney drew out the remains of his flatbread stack and took a big bite.

John shook his head. They continued, and every so often he scratched another arrow to mark their way. The tunnel continued to widen into a cavern and strange formations rose up out of the floor and dangled from the ceiling.

“They’re from the cooling lava,” said Rodney, pointing with his sandwich. “And look, that’s gypsum.” He raised the lantern to show the walls were stained white. “And hey, look at this!”

John regarded the blue splodges with disfavour. “What’s that? Looks poisonous.”

“Oh, it probably is. It’s microbial poop. From rock-eating bacteria.”

“Rock-eating bacteria? That’s kinda cool.”

“Cool, but not of any use to us.”

“No.” John turned in place, viewing what he could of the cavern in the lantern’s dim light. “Okay, I’m calling it. Let’s head back before we get lost.”

“High time,” said Rodney. “Blue microbial poop notwithstanding.”

“Where are you going?”

“This way. Look, here’s a mark.”

“That’s just a scratch - it’s not my mark. Mine’s over here.”

“Oh. Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. I made it.”

“Oh. Yes. You’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.”

The converging tubes looked completely different approaching from the opposite direction. John kept his eyes on the ground so that he wouldn’t miss his marks. He noticed some more blue splodges. “McKay, look.”

“What?” Rodney shone the light where John was looking. “More micropoop. So?”

John touched the blue blob. It was hard and dry. He picked at it with his finger.

“What did I say about it probably being poisonous? Is one poisoning not enough for you in a day?”

The blue substance flaked away from the rock. John sniffed at it.

“Ew.”

“It’s paint.”

“What? What does anyone want with blue paint, or indeed paint of any colour, in a lava tube?”

“There’s more here.” John followed a sporadic trail up a side tunnel.

“Don’t go up there. It’s the wrong way.”

“I’ll find the way back. I just want to - Ah.” John reached in among a cluster of vertical pipe-like lava formations. He stretched down, grateful that his tac vest stopped the sharp edges digging into his chest. Just a bit further. His fingertips touched something hard. He pushed up onto his toes and gained an inch or so more arm length to force down between the tubes. His fingers grasped and he pulled out his prize.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a jar,” said John. “A jar of blue paint.”

oOo

Ronon woke to a rattling slide as Teyla tipped more coals into the brazier. He opened his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Ronon. I did not mean to wake you."

"'S okay."

"How are you feeling?"

Ronon stretched his body out experimentally. His stomach muscles felt tired, as if he'd done too many crunches. But other than that, the pain was gone.

"Fine. Is there anything to eat?"

"Do you think it's wise to eat yet? Should you not give your system more time to recover?"

"No," said Ronon, flinging back the blankets and getting to his feet. "I'm hungry. Did McKay leave anything?"

“There is some fruit.”

“Huh.” Ronon picked up a round, green fruit, inspected it for possible tampering and then took a large bite. “This isn’t gonna be enough,” he said, around the explosion of juice. “Need meat. And bread or something.”

“There is food in the kitchen, but I will not leave you alone, Ronon.”

He shrugged and felt a grin lighten his face. “We’ll both go. Get something to eat. Have a look around.”

“I am not sure -”

“I’m fine.”

Teyla scrutinized him closely. He winked. She rolled her eyes.

They dressed for the cold, checked their weapons and spent a few minutes listening to the complete silence in the passageway, before making their way toward the main entrance and the kitchen below.

oOo

“Paint? Are you sure?”

“There’s a brush in it, Rodney.”

“Oh. Well, it’s hardly the clue that’s going to crack the case, is it?” said Rodney, with disappointment. “A guerilla decorator, who swoops in and improves your home then disappears into the night?”

John put the jar into his pocket. “It’s evidence of something.”

“It’ll be evidence all over your clothes if you do that.”

“It’s dried up.”

"What's that?" There was something sticking out from between the bulges of ancient lava bubbles. Rodney plucked out the tiny scrap and held it up to the lantern. "Paper," he said. "No. Parchment, I think."

"Anything written on it?"

"Like the name of the culprit? No. There's something there but I can't make it out." He stuffed the scrap in his pocket. “Well, anyways, let’s get back. Enough snooping around in the dark. What was that?” A faint scrape behind him made Rodney spin around. “I heard something! There’s someone there!”

“Ssh! I can’t hear with you talking.”

There was silence and then, distantly, a retreating patter of light footsteps over rock.

“There was someone there. Were they tracking us? Listening to us?”

John shook his head, uneasily. “I don’t know. Coulda been anyone. We know that plenty of people use these tubes. Come on. Time to get back.”

Rodney held up the lantern and they backtracked to their route. “Which way?” The branching tube entrances all looked the same.

“This one. Probably. Hmm”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sure it’s this one, but there’s no arrow.”

“Maybe our eavesdropper ran over it. You should’ve carved them into the wall.”

“One footprint wouldn’t scrub it out.” John searched the ground. “Here. It’s this one. But I could’ve sworn…”

“Yes, well, we all know you’re notorious for your excellent sense of direction,” Rodney sneered. “Come on Gretel, follow the breadcrumbs.” Rodney held the lantern high and John followed him into the tube. They’d soon be out. That sandwich had been a thing of beauty; a marvel of culinary engineering. He’d make another, and yes, some for Ronon and Teyla too. The tubes branched again. He scanned the ground. “Where’s you arrow, Sheppard?”

“I don’t know. I don’t recognise this bit.”

“I don’t recognise any of it.” There was a familiar vibrating tension about his friend. “What? Don’t tell me you’ve got us lost!”

“I don’t think that was my mark. Back there.”

“What? Some joker’s been scrubbing out your marks and putting in others?”

“Yeah... probably not a joke.”

“Oh.” And, right on cue, from behind them came the deep vibrating moan that had rung throughout the ice temple - the terrible, desolate, accusing cry of an ancient monster. “Run!”

oOo

She shouldn’t have been surprised. It was typical Ronon; any injury or illness was swiftly battled, defeated, thrown aside and forgotten, in his return to vigorous enjoyment of life, which, in this case, consisted of vigorous enjoyment of an unrealistic amount of meat clamped firmly between two flatbreads.

Teyla tore her bread into pieces and sandwiched between them tiny scraps of meat and cheese. She had also found some densely fruited cake and cut some slices, but they were hidden in her pocket, to be drawn out later in a moment of need. And there would certainly be need, whether it was Rodney’s ever-so-slight droop into round-shoulderedness, or Ronon’s sudden irritable growl to harmonise with a rumbling stomach, or John’s gradual tensing from casual drapery to twitching restlessness - she knew her team inside and out and that included the early signs of their hunger and fatigue. Not to mention her own; if her hunger coincided with a particularly relentless bickering session from her team, Teyla’s irritation grew spikes.

Ronon had finished and his eyes were resting thoughtfully on the much-diminished stack of flatbreads.

“Leave some for later.” Teyla tucked the cloth around the stack.

“Yeah okay.” Ronon jumped down from his stool. “Let’s have a look around.”

They retraced their steps, and Teyla heard nothing but their own movements, the sigh of the wind and the rattle of the shutters. Where was the other half of her team?

Although they hadn’t conferred, it seemed they both had the same strategy in mind; to begin again from their rooms and follow the route to the tunnels where they had encountered Mira-Fan, two nights before. Teyla scrutinized the corridor for any signs, but, where in the outside world there might have been broken stalks or footprints on soft ground, here there was nothing. The curtain over the entrance hung in forbidding, vertical folds. Ronon held it aside and they passed beneath.

She had brought one of the lanterns from Rodney’s room and lit it. The walls were rough and ridged. Teyla ran her fingertips over the surface.

She held up the lantern. “It is like a sponge hardened into rock.” It would easily tear skin.

Ronon twitched and she yielded to his impatience, directing the lantern down the tunnel and leading the way.

It was broad and straight for a while, then narrowed and curved and split. Teyla sniffed at the air from each branch. A draft flew from the lower tube toward the upper. They turned right and down, without speaking. A poisoner returning home would surely have been making for the town.

The breeze fluttered Teyla’s hair. The scrape of their own footsteps, the huff of their breath were the only sounds. A map of the tunnels they had traversed unfolded inside her head. She would not get lost, unless they took many convoluted turns.

“What’s in here?” Ronon poked the muzzle of his weapon toward a side entrance.

She shone the light in and then followed the beam into a large cavern. Sacks were piled in neat four-by-four piles, stacked four high. The bitter aroma of chak-tah beans sang in her nostrils. They walked the perimeter of the cavern and scanned the floor, but there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Another cavern a little further on held sacks of grain, similarly stacked. One pile was incomplete and a sack had been split, the dry, pale green kernels spilling out onto the ground.

“Green,” said Ronon. “Like the porridge.”

"It is called fahz. Its flour is used to make the flatbread as well."

"Mira-Fan said some'd been taken."

"Yes. Strange. I believe all receive a fair quota of the winter grain."

"Someone wants more than their share." Ronon scuffed his boot through the spilt grain. "There's nothing here. Let's go."

They continued down the passage until it branched into three, each seeming equally likely to lead to the town. Teyla set the lantern down and they both crouched, scanning the ground for the shadows of footprints cast by the yellow light.

"Plenty of action down here," said Ronon, his face close to the ground.

Teyla tucked some strands of hair behind her ear and studied the tiny ridges of dust. “To and from the storage chambers,” she murmured. “Up and down to the temple.”

“Here and there to do some poisoning,” added Ronon. He leapt up and stood over Teyla, blocking her light. “It’s this way. Freshest prints. Someone unfit. Moving stiffly. They stopped to rest against that rock.”

He reached down a hand and Teyla clasped it and was pulled exuberantly to her feet. “I am glad you’re feeling better,” she said.

White teeth flashed in the dim light. “Can’t keep me down for long. C’mon.”

They turned down the narrow tube. The rough, pitted walls pressed close and Teyla tucked her elbows in tight to her sides. Ronon held the lamp and it bobbed before her, further and further below her eye level as the gradient increased. Then it stopped.

Ronon bent down, picked something up and held it close to the lantern.

“What have you found?”

“Someone fell here,” he said. “Dropped this.”

Her head close to Ronon’s, they both examined the small crumpled paper. It was one of Sera-Min’s pill packets.

oOo

“No! We’re not running,” said John. “We’ll take cover. Let’s get a proper look at this monster.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Take on that thing with only these two pop-guns?”

John pushed him into the shelter of an alcove created by lava formations protruding from the ground and from above. He closed the shutters on the lantern. “I didn’t say we’re gonna take it on - just get a look at it.”

The groaning roar became louder. John crouched behind the lava spikes in the complete darkness. Then, the rock was illuminated once more with cold, white light which grew brighter and brighter until John grimaced in pain and had to shield his eyes with one hand. It was as if the tunnel was filled with luminous ice and he pressed himself further down behind the lava-stalagmites. Was Rodney right? Should they have run? Surely the thing would see them?

The gigantic blue-white undulating form filled the space, its outline undefined and confusing, like shapes beneath the frozen surface of a lake. Claws glinted, but John couldn’t make out where the arms began, and a mouth opened, but it didn’t seem to have a head. It roared again and the clawed feet scraped at the ground, like the grind of ice against rock. What would a bullet from his sidearm do against such a thing? What, even, would his P-90 do, even if it had been here in his hands rather than uselessly under his bed?

The rock vibrated against John’s body and the noise of the creature’s cry, close-to, was deafening. But there was something else, something that vibrated _inside_ him, something that buzzed with a jagged edge of alert against John’s inner senses. What was it?

The creature surged and flickered, raised its claws and howled, but didn't attack. Enough of this. John stood, raised his weapon, aimed above his head-height and fired. 

"Sheppard! What are you doing?"

"Stay down, McKay!"

John fired again. The ice monster continued to roar and the jarring buzz of instinct inside John's head screamed.

Then, another shrieking instinct made him look up, just in time, as a rank of aeons-old spikes formed of dripping lava shook free of the ceiling and plummeted toward them. John dived and pushed Rodney out of the way. Something heavy landed on his back, but didn’t penetrate his vest and something else hit the back of his left arm and the blow felt dull and then sharp as his nerves responded.

Rodney hit the wall of the cave with an explosion of breath and for a moment they struggled, tangled up with each other, surrounded by dark and noise and falling objects.

“Ow!”

“McKay!”

“Get off!”

“Stop shoving!”

“It’s gone! Did you hit it? Get off me!”

John squirmed around and hauled himself up, gripping the rough lava pipes. Rodney was right, the thing had gone and the roaring and vibrations were retreating. “Get up!” John groped for the lantern, opened the shutters and then grabbed Rodney’s arm and pulled him to his feet. “Come on!”

“What?”

John scrambled past the rock formations, drew his sidearm and set off after the creature.

“Sheppard! Stop!”

He pounded down the corridor, Rodney’s feet pounding in rhythm with his. It was moving ahead of them - fast, but not that fast. John increased his speed, came to a junction, skidded to a stop and listened.

Rodney grabbed his arm. “John! Why the hell are we chasing that thing?”

“Ssh!” That tunnel - that was the way. “C’mon, Rodney.”

“Wait!”

“Keep up!”

It had gained some distance, but he could hear it, he could feel its movement ahead. Then the vibrations were muffled and they came to another branching of the lava tubes. One led steeply down. “This way.”

John plunged into the darkness, missed his footing and fell. He dropped the lantern and heard it smash, tried to right himself, but fell further. Rodney’s cry came from above, then with a scraping, thudding and swearing, something heavy pushed him another few skidding feet.

There was a flicker of cold, white light and then it was gone and they were alone in the blackness.

oOo

Ronon turned the pill packet over in the lantern light. Teyla said nothing. “I guess this means -”

A distant roar interrupted him.

Ronon stuffed the clue deep in his pocket. It could wait. They had a monster to catch. “Which way?”

They listened and the roaring came again.

“This way!” Teyla darted down a branching lava tube and Ronon followed, adding to his inner map of this dark subterranean world.

The creature was down here. The creature that they had heard in the night, moaning in the dark, and the same creature that had eluded John in the maze of the temple and herded Rodney into the dangerously unstable area and led to his nearly dying in the deep, powdery snow of the crater.

They were after it, this thing that had threatened his team and, gripping his weapon tightly in his fist, Ronon was sure they would get it.

Shots rang out and Teyla increased her speed. Ronon matched it. The other half of their team could be in trouble.

Teyla jumped over a series of undulating waves in the rocky floor and ducked beneath an overhanging drapery of hardened lava. Ronon followed, surefooted, leaping and twisting and thoroughly enjoying the chase. The beast roared again. They were close. Then suddenly it turned. He could hear it lower and to his left and Ronon skidded to a halt behind Teyla, who held the lantern up high, the beam rising and falling with the surge of her breath.

“Down here,” she said. But then, she flung out her arm and held him back.

“What? It’s getting away.” The moans came from a different direction. Had they mistaken the trail? He turned, to pursue it down one of the other branching tubes.

“Ronon, wait.”

A groan came from below. Then a yelp and a curse.

Teyla moved closer to the steeply falling lava tube, shining the lantern down into the black depths. “John? Rodney?”

There was a scrape and a scuff. “Teyla?”

“Oh, thank God! I thought we were done for! Sheppard’s managed to smash our lantern.”

“We both fell, Rodney.”

“We wouldn’t have fallen if you hadn’t been going so hell-for-leather fast!”

Teyla exchanged rolling eyes with Ronon. “We are coming down.”

“No, that’s okay, Teyla, we’ll come up to you.”

“John, I am coming. Stay where you are.”

Ronon followed as Teyla picked her way carefully down the slope. Chips of loose rock and grit slid beneath Ronon’s feet and he had to duck and twist to avoid hanging lumps of rock. This passage was certainly not regularly used.

The lantern light revealed the other half of Ronon’s team, bent over beneath the low ceiling, pale and scraped and dusty and looking exactly like two men who’d thought themselves lost in a maze of rock without a light. Sheppard could pretend to be cool about it, but Ronon could see the fear still draining from his eyes and the tenseness that lingered in his shoulders. And he was slightly lop-sided. He was hurt somewhere and would try to hide it, but he wouldn’t get away with it.

Rodney was openly and unashamedly and desperately pleased to see them. The lantern light jerked as he grabbed Teyla and embraced her.

“Steady, McKay, let’s not lose another light,” John drawled. He leant, as if nonchalantly, against the curving wall. How much was he relying on its support?

"Did the creature attack you?" Teyla asked.

"No, we were chasing it," Rodney replied. "His idea." He jerked a thumb at Sheppard. "But it could've attacked and it didn't, so maybe it's not as much of a threat as we thought."

"Yeah, I've got a few ideas about our friendly neighborhood boogeyman." John's breath hitched and his eyes tightened in pain.

“Sheppard.” Ronon advanced on him.

“Hey, what’s that?” Rodney scrambled over a swirl of lava that looked like a heap of thick, hardened fabric. “Aha!”

“What’ve you got there, McKay?” John pushed away from the wall, holding his left arm. Light glinted on his sleeve.

“Look!" Rodney crouched on a pile of dusty sacks. "The missing bags of grain!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aha! The clues are coming thick and fast and it sounds like John has some ideas about the culprit. But first, they need to get out of the maze of lava tubes and as there’s been some hurt there’ll need to be some comfort...
> 
> Chapter 6 will be posted on Wednesday, because tomorrow's 'Cold Wind' day.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The clues are starting to add up! But what do they all mean? How will the team catch the monster? And will Teyla ever lose her cool?

"Huh! Nice one, McKay."

Rodney's eyes flicked over the sacks. "Twenty five. How many were missing?" His companions were outlined in the precious yellow glow of lantern light. He and John had been alone in the dark and Teyla's voice had been a beacon, showing the way home.

"Mira-Fan did not say." Teyla was watching John. She reached out to him but he stepped over the rock formation, squatted next to Rodney and examined the sacks.

"So, what does it all mean?" Ronon asked. "What do the clues add up to?"

"It means…" Rodney began. He rubbed a not entirely steady hand through his hair, encountering some painful bruises and dislodging a shower of grit. "It means we've got a painting-and-decorating, hide-and-seek-with-your-cereal-crops monster on our hands. Which makes no sense at all."

"It's beginning to make a lot of sense," said John. "You see -"

Teyla's hands had planted themselves on her hips. "There will be time enough to make sense of this mystery later. John, your arm is bleeding. Stop trying to hide it."

"I'm not -"

"Yes, you are."

"What, did that falling rock cut you?" Rodney craned his neck left and right to search his friend for injuries.

"It's fine."

"It is not fine," said Teyla. "Let me look."

Sheppard gave in and let Teyla examine his injury. 

"I cannot see through all these layers."

"It's cold! I'm not taking them off."

Velcro ripped sharply as Teyla took a bandage out of her tac vest. "I will bind it for now and deal with it when we get back to our rooms."

John mumbled grumpily.

Rodney felt his shoulders droop. Back to their rooms. _Asgard transporter beam, anyone? No?_ His body ached from their fall, and adrenaline seeped away, increasing the trembling in his hands.

"Rodney?"

A sweet, spicy scent bloomed on the air.

"What's that?"

"Fruit cake."

Rodney scrambled back over the rocky floor to claim his share. "Thanks, Teyla," he said, his cheeks bulging. 

So he was bruised and battered and hadn't a clue how to get out of this treacherous rocky maze? So what? His team was around him and he had cake. All was right with Rodney McKay's world. And it'd soon be even righter when Teyla had led them out. She'd know the way. She always did.

oOo

The cake had been very good and had kept blood sugar levels and, therefore, tempers on an even keel while Teyla led them out of the lava tubes. Ronon had stationed himself on their six without John having to say anything, which was good because John's arm was hurting and he was cold and increasingly annoyed as parts of the mystery began to align and lead to a culprit.

Then, when they regained their base camp in Rodney's room, the brazier was dark and lifeless, all the coal had been used and the room was freezing. Teyla went to their other rooms to get more coal and John had an argument with Ronon about whether his clothes, the left sleeves raggedly slashed by sharp rock, were worth saving.

"Soak 'em in cold water, wash 'em and sew 'em up. You shouldn't waste stuff."

"There's a great big hole! Sewing that up'll look a mess!"

"How can there be a great big hole? You said it wasn't that bad."

"Butt out, McKay."

"Patch them, then," advised Ronon.

"Butt out? You know what, why don't you just yell when you're hurting like everyone else, instead of taking it out on us! And you're not the only one who's in pain, by the way! I have multiple contusions, I'll have you know! And I'm probably hypothermic _again!_ "

There was an exasperated huff of breath. "Three minutes!" Teyla stood on the threshold, a brimming bucket of coal in either hand. "Three minutes I have been out of this room and already you are squabbling like children!"

"He won't -" Ronon began.

"Enough, Ronon!"

"Sheppard told me -"

"Rodney!"

John cast a smug look at his two male teammates.

"John!"

He flinched.

Teyla gave them their orders. "Ronon, build up the fire. Rodney, wash and get changed - you're covered in dust. John. Stay where you are!"

What, did she think he was going to run? Although, maybe if -

Teyla's eyes narrowed. "You are thinking that there is something which you, as team leader, are responsible for and should do right now. Do not!"

John found his layers of fleece, his tac vest, further layers of fleece and base layers stripped away gently but firmly.

"We will soak these in cold water, then wash them and they can be sewn up," said Teyla.

John pretended he didn't hear Ronon's self-satisfied chortle.

"Lie down."

"But -"

"It will be easier for me if you lie down."

John complied, smooshing his face into the mattress. There was a dent where the upholstery button pulled the layers of fabric together that his nose fit into quite nicely. It was dark and he thought he wouldn't mind staying like that for a bit.

"Ow, Jesus, Teyla!" John involuntarily jerked into a bow shape at the bite of disinfectant. "Give a guy some warning!"

"Huh! The stoic finally cracks!"

"Rodney! I am sorry, John."

"How's it looking?" He wasn't sure if he wanted to know.

"Dirty."

"Oh."

"I will give you something for the pain before I clean it out properly."

"Nah, I don't need -" A yell burst from John's lungs. It felt like she'd stabbed him. "Okay, yeah, maybe some painkiller might be a good thing. Just to take the edge off, you know?"

The local anaesthetic left John happily numb while Teyla did her work. The room began to warm up. Rodney found two brightly coloured quilted silk robes in the closet and, having had all his various scrapes and bruises treated (and each exclaimed over at length) he put a robe on and gave the other to John, so that, with a cobbled together mix of their own and their teammates' clothes, they had enough to keep them warm.

Teyla and Ronon armed themselves and then set off to the kitchen for supplies. John lay on his mattress beneath a pile of blankets absorbing heat like a grateful lizard and Rodney strode up and down the room, admiring the effect of the red silk robe as it billowed out behind him. He stopped, posed majestically and waved a commanding hand. "Et ceterah! Et ceterah! Et ceterah!"

"What the hell, McKay?"

"The King and I! I feel pretty regal in this thing. And exotic. Don't you?"

"No." John sat up, pushed his pillow against the foot of Rodney's bed and propped himself up. "Actually I feel pretty pissed."

Rodney's face fell.

"Not with you. With this whole monster-of-the-week set-up."

"Oh. That." Rodney sat down on the end of John's mattress.

"Yeah, that. And as soon as Teyla and Ronon are back, we're gonna make a plan."

"To catch the culprit?"

"You're damn right."

oOo

Teyla picked up a fruit that was unfamiliar to her. She tapped at its tough rind with her fingertips and pressed experimentally, close to where she guessed the flower would have been. A knife appeared at her elbow.

“Cut it into quarters and then suck out the middle.”

“Thank you, Ronon.” She took the knife. Juice dripped out where she cut. Teyla held the fruit to her lips and licked, before it could drip onto John’s mattress. A close huddle of good friends sitting cross-legged around a small spread of food - it reminded her of life in the Athosian camp, a life that felt increasingly distant.

Ronon reached for another slice of meat. He rolled it into a tube and bit the end off. “So, when’re we going after this thing? Blow some holes in it?”

“We’re not,” said John. “We’re not blowing holes in it, at least.”

“You shot it.” Rodney, following Ronon’s example, rolled up a flatbread into a dense tube. “You must’ve hit it - you couldn’t miss at that range.”

“Yeah, well. That was just testing a theory.” John picked at crumbs caught in the folds of his green robe.

Rodney shook his head, chewing rapidly. “Probably a hypothesis. But if you tested it, maybe it’s a theory now.” He rolled a hand, impatiently. “Share!”

John scratched his jaw. “Okay, so when we got up close and personal with our ice monster, what did you feel?”

“Feel? Terrified. Like I wanted to run in the opposite direction instead of chasing it?”

“Yeah, but apart from that? Didn’t you get a kind of… buzzing?” John flapped his hand next to his head.

“I don’t know. I was too focussed on the whole ‘terrified’ and ‘run away’ themes. Does anybody want the last flatbread?”

Teyla shook her head.

“I’ll go halves with you,” said Ronon.

“I heard no buzzing,” said Teyla.

“No, well, you wouldn’t,” said John. “For me, it was like sitting in that chair for the first time.”

“It triggered your ATA gene?” Rodney wrapped his semi-circle of bread over a piece of cheese.

“Yeah. And how. It came to attention like a cadet being yelled at by a drill sergeant. That thing’s running off an Ancient device.”

The creature had seemed so real to Teyla. “It is a machine?”

“Well, I’m guessing there’s someone inside it, controlling the whole show.”

“Ooh, it could be like a personal shield,” said Rodney. “A device that gives out something like a cloaking field, only with a projected image.”

“And sounds,” said Ronon.

“Mm, yes, plenty of roaring,” Rodney agreed. “There must be an amplifier or a kind of vocoder.”

“Roar-coder,” said Ronon. “Why d’you shoot it?”

“To see whether the bullets went through,” said Rodney. “You aimed above head-height, didn’t you? They went through, didn’t they?”

John nodded. “Struck sparks off the wall behind it.”

“There is someone inside the creature?” Teyla had her suspicions but didn’t voice them.

“Yeah. Someone inside it, pretending to be the big bad, so that we’ll get scared and go home.”

“What for?” asked Ronon.

“Okay, so it’s either someone who wants to give the chak-tah to their Ancient Gods instead of us,” (Rodney sneered.) “Or it’s someone who wants to keep the beans for themselves. To feed their chak-tah addiction.”

“Or to trade off-world and enjoy the profits,” said Teyla.

“Oh, well, yes, maybe,” Rodney admitted. “So, re-examining our motive and opportunity list, who’s the most likely? And we have to amend it to allow for someone with access to poisoned porridge.”

“Not necessarily,” said John. “That might’ve been someone different.”

“What, _two_ people with ‘Atlanteans go home’ t-shirts under their robes?”

“Why not?” Ronon rumbled.

Rodney shrugged. “Well, anyways, we’ve got two possible motives, and attacks that happened in places where pretty much everyone, in theory, could have been, thanks to the network of lava tubes.”

“I wouldn’t call them attacks,” said John.

“I was attacked!” Rodney protested. “I could’ve died, buried in the snow!”

“Yeah, but if someone’d really wanted us dead, they’ve had plenty of opportunity to do the job properly.”

"Oh well, yes, we wouldn't want any less than an efficient job when it comes to our murders, would we?" Rodney's voice dripped sarcasm. “They tried to poison us, Sheppard!”

“Wouldn’t’ve killed us,” said Ronon.

“Huh! Just because _you’ve_ got the constitution of an alien dinosaur, doesn’t mean _I_ wouldn’t have died! My system’s very sensitive!”

“Teerzen shoot rarely kills,” said Teyla. “It is merely debilitating for a while.”

_“'Merely'_ debilitating,” said Rodney. _"'Rarely'_ kills. Not very reassuring words, are they? Maybe whoever-it-was didn’t intend to kill us, but we still could’ve died. And who knows what else the culprit’s planning? They haven’t put us off yet - maybe they’re going to ramp things up, get rid of us once and for all!”

“We need to catch them,” said Ronon. “Hunt ‘em down. Trap ‘em.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got a few ideas there,” said John. “The snow’s stopped, right?”

“It has,” said Teyla. “Life seems to be resuming in the town and there are no more clouds on the horizon.”

“Good,” said John. “So, tomorrow, we catch ourselves a monster.”

oOo

The blue paint, the scrap of parchment, the pill packet that Ronon and Teyla had found - they swirled around in John’s thoughts and in his dreams and blended with scenes from this strange mission: the shrines outside the town, the dinner on their first night, the temple with its stone-built lobby and ancient scrolls, and above all, the lava tubes that connected the whole town and its environs, like the clues connected together to solve the mystery.

In the morning, the pattern had settled and, despite his lack of sleep, John was ready to act. His injured arm was stiff and tight, but he’d manage. And, judging by Rodney’s more than usually grumpy morning noises, his body was sore and bruised from their fall. He’d have to manage too.

Rodney pulled on his clothes, yawning. “So, what’s the plan?”

John was already dressed and checking the action on his sidearm. “We need to get the monster to come out and play again.”

“I’ll shoot it,” said Ronon.

“Yeah. But set to stun, Ronon. Got that? No killing.”

“What, that’s it?” Rodney scoffed. “We use ourselves as bait and then shoot it?”

“The simple plans are the best, McKay. And if Ronon can stun whoever’s inside, I reckon I can get whatever Ancient device is running the whole show to switch off. If I can get close enough.”

“How do we know the creature will show itself again?” Teyla checked the contents of her tac vest and zipped it up. “Already the townspeople are resuming normal life and there are sounds of activity in the Halls. It will not appear to a crowd.”

“There’d better be activity in the kitchen,” said Rodney. “Of the non-poisonous kind.”

“Like McKay said, we use ourselves as bait,” said John. “If we’re somewhere out of the way, it’ll show itself. Especially if we drop hints that just one more attack’ll scare us off.”

“So, what, we parade around the town, singing ‘One more chance?’”

“What, that Daft Punk thing?”

“No, that was ‘One more time’.”

“Oh. Britney?”

“No! Michael Jackson! But, my point is, if we want to catch the culprit we have to find a way to let all our suspects know when to show up. Ronon! Shut that thing, you’re letting in a freezing cold draft!”

Ronon slid the window shutter closed. “They’re all coming.”

“What? Who?”

“Mira-Fan, councillors, priests. Sera-Min. Saw them out the window.”

“They are probably concerned for us, having left us alone all day yesterday,” said Teyla.

“Concerned for their trade deal,” said Rodney.

John eased himself up from his mattress. “Well, if we’ve got ourselves a breakfast meeting, let’s go. See what we can scare up.”

“Oh, ha ha.”

oOo

“Colonel Sheppard!” Mira-Fan looked up at them from the entrance hall. “Are you and your team well? I am so sorry you were all alone up here yesterday!”

Ronon hung back on the landing, letting his team clump down the stairs before him. The councillors were there too, as well as Sera-Min.

“We’re okay, thanks,” replied John. “But we weren’t alone.”

John reached the foot of the stairs, Rodney and Teyla flanking him.

“Ah, Ten-Ling saw to your needs. That is good.”

“Yeah, I didn’t mean Ten-Ling.”

“Then who else…?”

“That’s what we’d like to know.” John shuffled and rubbed a hand round the back of his neck. “You see, the thing is, I’m not sure if we’re gonna go ahead with the deal after all.”

Ronon watched the assembled councillors closely. The door rattled and opened. Kesh-Ven entered, Den-Lay in his wake.

“Not go ahead? Surely there is no reason to call off our agreement.”

“Yeah, well, we’re getting the impression that not everyone wants to trade with us.”

“But we have agreed -”

“Ronon was poisoned yesterday. And we all would’ve been if he hadn’t realised in time.”

“Poisoned? But - Are you sure? Perhaps our food does not agree with him.”

“I am sorry, Mira-Fan,” said Teyla. “But we are sure. He was poisoned with teerzen shoot.”

Sera-Min frowned, but remained otherwise impassive.

“But who would -”

“That’s not all,” John interrupted again. “Dr McKay’s fall the other day was no accident, and there was something running round down in the lava tubes yesterday trying to scare us.”

“It is as I foretold!” Kesh-Ven’s voice rang with satisfaction. “The Vey-tek-lah has risen to punish those who would take the Ancient’s rightful tribute!”

“High Priest, this is not the time -”

“It is exactly the time! We must take heed, or the monster will destroy us all!”

“Yeah, that’s as maybe,” said John. “But whatever or whoever is trying to scare us off… Well, we’re not keen to give them the chance to do some real damage - either now or when our people come back here to do the exchange. It’s not worth the risk.”

“But surely, the agreement we reached was acceptable to both sides.”

“Not to _someone_ on your side.”

“Colonel Sheppard, please reconsider.” Mira-Fan gestured at the assembled councillors. “We thought to complete our ceremony this morning, as it was impossible yesterday, but it can wait if you would like more time to decide.”

“I don’t know if -”

“Please, the storm has gone, take some time to explore our town, enjoy our hospitality. Has all of your party seen the Temple of Colours yet?”

“I’m not sure that we want to go there again, given what happened last time.”

“Perhaps not. But it is a beautiful day! The sun shines on the mountain! Please, my people truly would not wish you to depart with bad feelings between us. Alliances between worlds are so important.”

John’s show of reluctance edged into a small smile. “Well, we did run across something yesterday that might be kinda fun.”

“Name your pleasure!” encouraged the leader.

A broad grin spread across John’s face. Part of the act or genuine enthusiasm?

“We found some skis.”

oOo

“This is such a bad idea,” said Rodney. “Bad and stupid and reckless.”

“Yeah, you won’t be saying that when we’ve caught our monster.” John dropped his skis and slid his feet into the bindings.

“There’s no guarantee the monster will show.” Rodney set his skis down and stuck his poles in the snow.

"I think it will. Just to make sure it's got us running scared." John stood up and took a deep breath. "And this place is perfect. Anyone can get here unseen." He gestured to the ornate entrance to the lava tube network behind him. "There's no one about." He swept his arm to encompass the snow-filled bowl and the slanting columns of ice that made up the Temple of Colours. "And, we get the bonus of doing a little skiing while we're here. You okay, Chewie? Need any help?"

Ronon, who claimed never to have skied before, nodded, his eyes inscrutable behind his snow goggles, the shrug of powerful shoulders barely detectable beneath his layers of winter gear. "Yeah. You just slide, right? Looks easy."

"Actually, there's a lot of skill involved and beginners can find it - Oh, what's the point?" Rodney gave up his attempt to instruct his teammate as Ronon glided smoothly forward and disappeared over the edge of the crater. Teyla followed him. "I didn’t know Teyla could ski. Did you?"

"Yeah, she said they used to hunt some kind of snow deer thing from winter camps on Athos." John finished checking his bindings and picked up his poles. "Are you sure you know how to handle those things?"

Rodney's response was edged with bitterness. "Mm, yes, well I do have a certain level of experience, despite never having received the Eager Beavers Skiing Proficiency badge." _'A danger to himself and others,'_ he thought, with deeply ingrained rancour. What did that stupid instructor know, anyhow? “I don’t think you should be skiing. You’ll make your arm worse.”

John flexed his arm. “It’ll be fine. We won’t go far.”

It was a fine morning for skiing. After the storm, the sky was a clear, vibrant blue. Great curving drifts of snow rose up in graceful, knife-edged swathes of shadow-blue and white and Rodney was glad he'd packed plenty of factor one hundred as well as a spare pair of goggles.

"Come on, McKay! Let's try over here." John pushed away and began a slow glide on a diagonal to the crater.

Rodney followed. His skis didn't seem to like each other; they slid further and further apart until he lost his balance and fell backward. He lay for a moment, face up to the blue sky. One or two grey clouds gathered around the blue bowl of his vision. He pushed himself up. "I'm fine, I’m fine, don't all come running! Oh."

He couldn't see John anymore. There was a muffled whoop from the crater - Ronon, no doubt an expert already.

Rodney made it to his feet, clenched his fists tightly around his poles and set off again. This time his legs seemed to have better control of the unruly skis and he got into a slow but steady rhythm.

"Rodney?" John appeared, shuffling his way back over the crest of the slope. “What’s up? We should be staying together.”

“I know that,” Rodney grumbled. “It would help if everyone didn’t leave me behind.”

“Sorry. Come over this way. The view’s great.”

Rodney couldn’t help feeling that his team leader had forgotten exactly why they were up here, messing about in the snow. He was about to say something wittily cutting to that effect, when John turned and looked back and his friend’s wide grin against the blue sky took the wind completely out of Rodney’s irritated sails. _Let him have his fun_ , he thought. _He gets little enough._

John was right. The view over the valley was spectacular; even more impressive than it had been on their last, rather unpleasant, trip up to the temple. The snow had covered the zig-zag path completely, its pristine, unbroken whiteness a continuous, smoothly undulating slope all the way down to the red-roofed houses; a terrifyingly precipitous slope, in Rodney’s opinion. The stiffening wind tugged at his snowsuit, threatening to whip him over the edge. Cloud shadows ran swiftly down the mountain and the day lost some of its brightness.

“Don’t,” said Rodney.

“Huh?”

“Just don’t.”

“What?”

Rodney huffed, his breath spiralling out over the extra-blackest of the black-runs descent. “Don’t get any ideas about skiing down there.”

“I wasn’t,” said John, in transparently false denial.

Two smooth glides halted behind them. 

“Whoa.”

“No.” Rodney and John both said together.

“Come on, Sheppard.” Ronon edged closer to the sharp drop-off. “I’ll race you!”

“What, to see who could break their neck first?” Rodney turned around. Even looking at the slope was giving him vertigo. “Anyways, look. It’s clouding over. I think we should call it quits.” Ragged grey clouds ran over the top of the crater and the way up to the lava tubes was obscured. He turned back toward the town, but the slope had gone.

“We’ve only just got here,” said John. “And no one’s come up that way.” He waved one of his poles at the hidden descent. “Our monster friend’s gonna have to come up the lava tubes.”

“Unless they came up before us,” said Rodney.

“We should not linger here,” said Teyla. “Mountain weather is dangerous and I think there may well be more snow coming.”

John turned in place, assessing the conditions. “Wow, that came down fast. Okay, yeah. Let’s head back.”

The cloud was lowering rapidly. Ice-cold wetness formed on Rodney’s face. Even Teyla’s outline was obscured, just a few metres away. The wind blustered around him, roaring in his ears. And then there was a different roar. “What was that?”

The grey shapes of his friends froze.

John’s voice came out of the murk, flat and dead in the suppressing cloud. “It’s here.”

oOo

“Where is it? Which way?” Rodney twisted about, one of his skis caught on the other and he lurched toward John.

John caught his friend’s arm. “Steady McKay.” He couldn’t tell where the sound had come from. “Just listen.” A low moan began, carried on the gusting wind. “That way.” He pointed into the greyness, toward the crater.

“No, it was coming from up there. Back up by the tunnel entrance.” Ronon drew his blaster and its awakening zing was accompanied by the familiar orange glow.

“Set to stun, Ronon.”

“Yeah.”

“I do not think -”

Teyla was cut off by the moaning roar, louder this time. John turned his head, this way and that, but could get no impression of direction in the suppressing cloud. He could see the orange point of Ronon’s blaster, but he couldn’t see Ronon. “It’s getting thicker. Don’t lose each other.”

“It’s here, it’s up this way.” The orange point disappeared.

“Ronon, no!” Teyla’s ghost merged with the grey-white blankness.

“What did I just say?” John could no longer see half of his team.

“ _I’m_ still here,” said Rodney.

“Good. Stay close.”

Then the monster was on top of them, its roar shatteringly loud. But John couldn’t see it properly; the cloud was too thick. It was just a shape, towering above him, seeming to loom closer and then away. John stepped forward, the tingling in a corner of his mind growing to an urgent exclamation point. He was right. Surely he was right - it was an Ancient device and if he could just get close enough…

It roared again, and the sound rang all about him.

Ronon cried out. “It’s here!”

Teyla’s disembodied voice yelled, “Ronon, no!”

There was a sharp spit of orange fire.

John couldn’t see the monster. Had Ronon stunned it?

Then a ragged break in the clouds revealed Ronon, falling to his knees in the snow next to a small, crumpled shape. “Teyla!”

“Sheppard!”

John whirled around. The creature was between him and Rodney.

“Sheppard, help!”

John threw himself forward. He’d tackle the thing, stunned or not. It was just a man in there; a stupid, selfish man who was threatening his team. The great, blue-grey shape was right in front of him. John leapt forward. He could feel the thing somehow, like a shimmering in the tips of his fingers. _Off!_ He yelled inside his head. It whipped away from him, out of reach of hand and mind. He leapt again, but the point of a ski caught the snow and he fell.

“Sheppard!”

Rodney’s cry fell away, a sudden, sharp, loss. The vast shape had gone too, the tingling buzz rapidly retreating out of all hope of his influence.

John scrambled to his feet. The cloud broke. But even before he looked down over the sheer, brutal drop to the red-roofed houses far below, he knew what he would see.

The creature, running or falling or sliding - he couldn’t tell - and beyond it, already a mere small, grey, scribbled shape, travelling dangerously, terrifyingly fast, was Rodney.

John fixed his gaze down, far down beyond the tips of his skis. He leant forward and bent his knees. And then he pushed himself out and fell and pushed again with great sweeping movements of his poles, faster and faster and far beyond what was safe. Speed and more speed and more, and he flicked over a rise and flew, then landed, and he would have laughed if it hadn’t been for his friend’s danger.

All his mind and body were bent toward catching the tiny figure below him. Was Rodney still on his feet? John couldn't tell. If he lost his balance or hit an obstacle he'd spin out of control, cartwheel and fall and fall, breaking limbs and maybe breaking his neck.

But even if John caught him, what then? How could he stop his friend's headlong, hurtling flight?

He pinned his gaze below and sped down and desperately down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The team’s ‘simple’ plan to catch the monster has gone terribly wrong, and now Teyla is stunned and John, Rodney and the monster are hurtling down the side of the mountain!
> 
> How will it all end? Who is the culprit hidden by an Ancient monster-device? Come back tomorrow for the concluding chapter!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We left Rodney and John and the monster hurtling down the hill! Let’s catch up with them! And then on to the unmasking of the culprit!

A small, detached compartment of Rodney’s massive brain was busily attempting to rationalise his heart-stoppingly rapid descent by calculating just how many times faster than this he’d actually travelled in the past. Having spent considerable time progressing between galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, the multiple was an entertainingly large figure and the little group of grey cells were chuckling to each other about how best to express it, when the most important part of his brain, i.e. the part concerned with his potential, imminent demise, exercised its casting vote to tell them to shut the hell up and do something useful or, alternatively, get on board with the blind panic that was whiting-out most of its synaptic connections.

Rodney wasn't sure what had happened in the rapidly-thickening cloud at the top of the hill. Had the monster pushed him, or had he been standing too close to the edge? It didn’t matter. He had slid toward the terrifying drop, slowly, inexorably, so that he had plenty of time to think about what was about to happen. 

Rodney had waved his arms, shifted his weight and tried to fall down into the snow so that he could dig in and cling on and generally maintain an acceptable altitude, rather than plummet to his death. It hadn’t worked. His skis had tipped over the point of no return, sneered derisively at friction’s tentatively raised hand, and rapidly picked up speed, not caring that he was facing the wrong way and was sliding, backside first, out and down, faster and faster. 

Rodney’s arms flung wide of their own accord, his poles catching the air and swinging and banging together. One hit the snow, briefly dug in and he pivoted and was suddenly facing the right way down the slope; or the wrong way, because when he burst out beneath the cloud he had a ringside seat for his own bone-snapping, hurtling descent, to ultimately, inevitably, brighten the red roofs far below with his own, very personal brand of paint.

The snow fell away beneath him, he flew and then smacked down hard, flew again and landed unevenly, switchbacked across the slope, his skis skidding out of control. Rodney, leant into the move, regained something which might loosely be described as balance and then the slope curved in a tight, banked sweep, forcing him round, like a bobsled rocketing down a twisting, jinking course.

Then the monster was there, next to him, its form blurring and shimmering. Rodney couldn’t tell whether it was sliding on its icy butt or did it have skis too? Had it fallen, like him? Had it meant to plummet down the mountain, like a yeti representing Tibet in a bid for Olympic glory? What Rodney could see of its amorphous face looked as blindingly terrified as him. Serve it right.

Rodney’s knees were on fire, his thighs and calves beginning to cramp as the slope battered at them from beneath his skis and he fought back, desperately trying to maintain his posture. His arms shook with exhaustion, tucking in against his sides and then whipping out left and right as he fought for balance. 

There was something black ahead: a rock, projecting from the smooth blanket of snow. The monster had spotted it too. Its arms were pinwheeling, it fell and tobogganed on its back. Rodney leant sideways into the slope, trying to turn, to pick up a different current in the flow of the mountain and slide past the thing, but the rock was like a magnet, pulling him in. He hit it, one ski point was suddenly wrenched back, something snapped and, flying through the air he braced himself for more snapping and cracking and pain. But he landed, wobbled, realised he had only one ski, and that it was the foot bindings that must have snapped rather than his vulnerable bones.

This was it. He might as well face it and choose between silent terror or its blood-curdlingly screaming counterpart; there was no possible outcome in which Rodney could realistically retain his balance, dignity or, let’s face it, his life.

His synaptic circuits went into overdrive. A mass of mathematical formulae blanked out the scene before Rodney’s eyes: gravity and speed and acceleration toward terminal velocity and inclines and vectors and variables. His terrified brain rolled it all up and spat it out in a ball of shifting balance and something that felt like instinct, but was calculated down to the last twitching muscle fibre. 

And Rodney rode his single ski like a surfer riding the wave of a lifetime.

He whooped and hollered and for a moment he knew what John was all about - the power in the speed, the finger flicked at life’s dangers, the exhilarating, soul-lightening delight of leaving behind two-footed plodding, to join the angels in flight. He didn’t know where the monster had gone and didn’t care, and when he saw the red roofs below, considerably nearer now, he almost wished them away so that he could carry on flying.

Then the undulations in the snow became more frequent and Rodney’s knees flexed and straightened in a rapid, agonising up-and-down of trembling exhaustion. He couldn’t keep this up; his body just couldn’t do it, no matter what fine-tuned calculations his panic-heightened genius had come up with. But how on any planet was he going to stop?

oOo

John was paying more attention to Rodney’s progress than his own and his inattention had resulted in near-disaster more than once. He’d missed an upcoming rise, parted company with the snow, landed awkwardly and managed to right himself through sheer luck. Then a little further down, when he’d been focussed on his friend’s barreling, breakneck descent in parallel with the blurred figure of the monster, he’d lost his footing entirely, spreadeagled his arms and legs before he could become a rolling mass of snow, slid on his back a considerable distance and halted himself by digging in one of his poles.

Snowflakes drifted down on John’s face. The sudden stillness was disorienting, the sky white above, the snow white below. His clothes rustled and flapped in the wind. He sat up, digging the other pole into the snow, the slick surface wanting to take him spinning and sliding down once more. 

He couldn’t see Rodney, or the monster. The town wasn’t that far below now, the slope slightly shallower. John picked himself up carefully and managed to set off at a more sedate pace. His injured arm burned, but he didn’t care. Where was Rodney? He’d tried, He’d tried so hard to catch up with his friend, and maybe he could’ve grabbed Rodney and slowed him down somehow, or even just wrapped himself around his body and taken the impact of a fall himself. But he’d failed. He hadn’t caught him up and now what was done was done.

The High Halls were below and to one side, snow banked up in a gigantic drift against the facing wall. John squinted and wiped his goggles with one hand. There was movement in the narrow streets - rapid, darting movement and, drifting toward him on the wind, sharp cries of terror.

The slope lessened further and, wearily, John dug his poles into the snow and pushed himself toward the High Halls. Against the huge snowdrift, he could see a blurred mass of blue-white. His eyes strained and searched for his friend. What had happened to Rodney? He’d be hurt. He was bound to be, and the knife-edged ridge to the Gate might not be passable still. How would John get help? How would he get his friend back to Atlantis?

Closer he came and avoided the lines of snow piled up above stone-walled animal pens, and the conical outlines of shrines robed in white. The blue-white shape was motionless against the snowdrift. John was almost certain who it was, but he hardly cared anymore. They might not have intended murder, but…

The massive, curving drift piled up against the side of the High Halls suddenly shifted and a section collapsed. Then, a second monster burst out, roaring and staggering and waving its arms, its head tucked down to its chest. It faltered, its legs collapsed and it fell, face down.

John ran toward the fallen figure, tripped over his skis, picked himself up, pushed forward too hard with his poles, skidded sideways and tumbled over, within arm’s reach of this second, smaller, snow-covered creature.

“McKay!”

“Ugh.”

“Rodney!” John tore at the bindings on his skis and pulled his feet free. He knelt over his friend and wiped the snow away from his goggles and his wind-blasted cheeks. “Rodney, are you okay?”

“Guh.”

“Of course you’re not okay. Can you tell me where it hurts?”

“Nuh.”

“What?”

Rodney’s lips flapped helplessly. He’d be getting colder, lying in the snow, but to move his friend might exacerbate any serious injuries.

A low moaning growl came from behind him. “Shut up,” said John. “I’ll deal with you later.” He glanced over his shoulder. The monster, head down in the snow, was stirring, but not making any attempt to get up.

He could really do with some help, but there were no townspeople to be seen - all run away from the notorious Vey-tek-lah, no doubt. And as for the rest of his team - he hoped Ronon had had the sense to carry the stunned Teyla back through the lava tubes rather than taking the more direct route. He looked up at the frightening slope above. Nothing moved against the white, apart from the falling snow and, much higher up, the grey, trailing edges of drifting clouds.

“Sheppard.”

“Rodney!” 

“D’you see me? Sk- skiing?”

“Rodney, tell me where it hurts! Can you move your legs, your arms?”

The crumpled figure shifted awkwardly. “Mm. Still there.” An arm lifted, then another, then they flopped down onto the snow. “Tired.” The figure struggled a bit more, then relaxed.

He wasn’t in obvious pain. John took a risk and hauled his friend’s body up to lean against his own.

“Hey, Sheppard.” Rodney’s lips curled into a drunken smile. “Did ya see? I was… I was mag-nif-sent.” He gave a burbling chuckle and then collapsed into a heavy, boneless weight.

“Colonel Sheppard?”

Holding tight to his friend, John screwed his head round awkwardly to see a fur-bundled figure, a good way off, looking like it might cut and run at any moment.

“Mira-Fan?”

“Colonel! The Vey-tek-lah!”

John glanced at the fallen creature. One of its great arms flapped and it grunted, then was still. “Oh. Yeah.”

“What shall I do? We must not anger a creature of the Gods!”

“Nah, it’s a fake. Look, I need help. McKay’s hurt.”

“A fake?”

“Yeah. C’mon, rally the troops please, Ma’am. We need to get Rodney inside.”

Mira-Fan gestured behind her and her usual satellites shuffled around the corner of the High Halls. “Come!” she commanded. “This is not a creature of the Gods!” The councillors shuffled minimally closer, Dol-Tuk amongst them. Sera-Min was there too, and took a few more steps forward, her instincts to help the injured man clearly warring with her fear.

“The doom of the Ancients has come upon us! The Vey-tek-lah has fallen!”

John snorted at the High Priest’s words. “Crap,” he said, succinctly. Then he slipped one arm beneath Rodney’s knees and curled the other round his shoulders and, his legs and back straining, lifted his friend away from the fallen creature. Ignoring Kesh-Ven’s continuing rant, he staggered forward under Rodney’s weight, his muscles weak from his desperate downhill pursuit, his sore arm flaring with pain. “You and you.” He nodded at a couple of the councillors and made it a few more steps toward them. “Take him inside. Now.”

They scuttled forward, casting fearful sidelong glances at the monster, and carefully took Rodney from John’s arms. Sera-Min went with them around the corner of the building. John wanted to follow, but he had a job to do first.

“The beast has come among us! Our doom is at hand!” wailed the High Priest.

“Yes, Honoured Father,” agreed Dol-Tuk. “The beast has come to claim the Gods’ full tribute!”

“Put a sock in it,” recommended John, which, he guessed, wouldn’t sit well with Teyla’s ‘respecting local religion and customs’ spiel, but he was long past caring. He plodded toward the creature, his legs heavy with weariness.

“Colonel Sheppard, be careful!” Mira-Fan maintained her safe distance.

“Yeah, whatever.” A roaring fire and some hot food. That was what he wanted. And he’d have them, after dealing with this sorry excuse for a mythical beast.

As he approached the moaning monster, the buzzing increased in that normally hidden corner of John’s mind. He always found it difficult to describe what he did, this strange control over Ancient stuff - it was as if he had another sense, a phantom pair of hands with which to grasp intangible mysteries. But, having the gene was something John was so used to it was just normal to him; prosaic, like turning off a tap or switching off the TV.

He reached out with his mind and turned off the device.

And, lying on the ground, moaning in an entirely human voice, looking wet and battered and very sorry for himself, was the young priest, Den-Lay.

“Help me. Please, Colonel!”

John sighed, went to rub his eyes and realised he still had his snow-goggles on. There was a movement at his side.

“Den-Lay! You!” The leader was clearly shocked, but it was sadness and regret that were strongest in her voice.

Spluttering indignation and half-formed exclamations announced the High Priest’s approach.

“There’s your monster, Kesh-Ven,” said John.

“I don’t understand,” said Mira-Fan. “Why, Den-Lay? Why would you do this?”

“But…” Dol-Tuk reached out a trembling hand to point at the fallen man. “How can this be?”

“Heretic!” Kesh-Ven roared his disapproval at his colleague. “Blasphemer! You dishonour the Gods!”

“What Gods?” spat Den-Lay. “The Ancestors were no gods, they were people, like you and me!” He slapped at the oval device on his chest and grimaced in pain. “People who invented tricks like this! If they were ever our protectors, they deserted us a long, long time ago and now others live in their city - does that make them gods? No!”

“They are our friends, Den-Lay,” said Mira-Fan. “Our friends that you have tried to drive away!”

“They’re no friends of ours!” Den-Lay pushed himself up on one hand, the other arm dangling uselessly at his side. “They’re just as bad as the Ancestors! Meddling in what they don’t understand!” He gasped and collapsed.

“I am sorry this has happened, Colonel,” said the Leader. “And I am sorry for you, Den-Lay.”

The disgraced priest turned his face into the snow.

John’s body sagged with tiredness and disappointment. But his reflexes were still quick enough to catch another, who sagged further and faster toward the snow. He caught one of Dol-Tuk’s arms and Mira-Fan caught the other.

“It is a shock for us all, Councillor,” said the leader. “A very sad betrayal.”

Dol-Tuk’s shoulders shook. “No, my leader. You must not call me Councillor any more. For I too have betrayed your trust and that of our guests.”

oOo

Rodney’s arms felt weighted down with lead, and yet still they managed to reach out and pluck morsels from the plate in front of him and post them into his mouth to dissolve in a mass of creamy sweetness; which was good, because he was too tired to chew any more, even though he’d slept the whole afternoon away.

The dining room had been made extra cosy for his and his team’s benefit. Heavy hangings had been fastened over the wooden shutters to keep out the draughts, extra cushions had been piled on the floor and quilted silk gowns and comforters had been provided for all. It really was the most luxurious feast Rodney had ever attended, on any world. He didn’t think the Romans could have surpassed it for decadence, or at least not for softly enveloping snuggliness. They probably hadn’t needed snuggliness in Rome anyway. Although some parts of their empire would have been quite chilly...

“McKay!”

“Sorry, what?”

“Nothing. You were about to fall into your dessert.”

“Oh.” Rodney looked down at the pink and white blobs of deliciousness on his plate. If he did actually recline fully, it was possible they were round enough to simply roll into his mouth. And his arms _were_ very tired.

“If we are all finished -” began Mira-Fan, “or nearly finished…” she smiled at Rodney, “perhaps our friends could explain to us the recent unfortunate events.”

There was nothing unfortunate about them in Rodney’s opinion. The luck had most certainly been on his side, especially when it came to his lack of broken limbs. Den-Lay hadn’t been so fortunate, breaking an arm and a leg, and possibly several ribs.

There was a rumble of interest from the assembled councillors.

“How the Gods could allow such blasphemy I do not understand!” began Kesh-Ven.

“None of us does, High Priest,” said Mira-Fan. “But let us allow our friends to give their perspective. Please, Colonel.”

John shuffled on his piled cushions, cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. He looked like an owl, his snow-goggles having stencilled huge eyes surrounded by red, irritated skin. Not nearly enough factor one hundred.

“Well, I guess the first hint was when we arrived. Den-Lay stopped to pray at each of the shrines, so we had nothing else to do but check out the pictures. That gave him an opportunity to point out your local boogey-man - to plant the seed, so to speak.”

“Desecration!” spat Kesh-Ven. "Daubing fresh colour over ancient frescos!"

“Yeah, well…” John paused. “So, there were a coupla things that we didn’t get at the time, but later, we put them together.”

“The guy had dirty hands,” said Ronon.

“Yeah, at the meal on the first night, Den-Lay had stained fingers.”

“I don’t understand,” said Mira-Fan.

“No, well, you see, Kesh-Ven here had found an ‘ancient’ scroll.”

“Only it wasn’t so ancient,” put in Rodney.

“No, it was another plant - to put the wind up us about the monster."

"But how did you know?" asked the leader.

"We didn't, to begin with. But it all kinda fell into place when Rodney found the scrap of parchment down in the lava tubes."

"At the same time as you spotted the blue paint that he'd used to touch up the shrines," said Rodney.

"That sound we heard on your first night," said Mira-Fan. "I should have investigated further."

"The wind!" scoffed Rodney.

"I am sorry. But I could not think that it was anything harmful and the lava tubes do sometimes sing in the wind."

"That was no 'singing in the wind' that drove me through the floor of your Temple of Colours!"

"McKay."

"What?"

"You're okay now, let's leave it at that."

"Hmph."

"Anyway," John continued. "It was my fault. I shoulda realised when we were in the temple, only I thought I'd heard Den-Lay at the same time as the monster. And, well, I liked the guy."

"As did we all," Mira-Fan said, regretfully. "I still cannot believe that he would betray his faith."

"It is said among my people that wealth can make a wise man foolish," said Teyla. "Or the prospect of wealth."

Teyla looked none the worse for her accidental stunning. And Ronon was still sheepish, though he had paid for his mistake by carrying her all the way down the mountain through the lava tubes. 

"A 'nice little earner' I believe it's called in some circles," commented Rodney, wavering between a pink or a white blob of deliciousness. "Substituting bags of grain for a proportion of each year's tribute and hiding the Chak-tah sacks until he could safely take them off-world to sell."

"Blasphemy!" said Kesh-Ven once more. "To think that each year we have been sending the essence of mere common fahz grain to the Gods. No wonder the Vey-tek-lah rose to punish the unrighteous!"

"Um…" Rodney frowned but caught a pleading glance from Mira-Fan. His lips twitched to complete the set of clues with John's tingling gene and his shots above human height that passed straight through the creature, but a meaningful look from Teyla kept his words in check. "Why did he try to poison us? Didn’t he think the rampaging monster was enough?”

“Ah, yeah, that wasn’t Lay,” said John.

“What?” The sweet delicacy fell from Rodney’s fingers and landed with a soft splat on his plate. “There’s still a poisoner at large? Has this stuff been tested?”

“Calm down, Rodney. It’s okay. We dealt with it while you were sleeping off your morning’s exercise.”

“Who, then? Who’s the poisoner? Where’s that doctor woman?”

“Sera-Min is out attending her patients,” said Mira-Fan.

“It wasn’t her,” said Ronon.

“You’d like to believe it wasn’t her!” said Rodney.

“McKay,” John claimed his attention. “It was Dol-Tuk.”

“What, Grumpy Man? Because he wanted the Gods to have their tribute? How?”

“Teerzen shoot is used in medicine for indigestion,” said Teyla. “We saw Dol-Tuk take it, that first night.”

“Did we?” Rodney didn’t remember.

“He takes it all the time,” said Mira-Fan.

“And in the lava tubes, as I told you, Ronon and I found one of the medicine packets.”

“That could have been left there by anyone.”

“The tracks were from someone moving slow. Like an old man,” said Ronon.

“Anyway, he confessed,” said John. “When he saw that Den-Lay had been the monster all along.”

“Oh.”

“He said he had a whole load of half-empty packets lying about.”

“So he crushed them up and stirred them into our breakfast? Nice,” said Rodney, bitterly. “So, what’ve you done with him? And what’s going to happen to Den-Lay?”

“The Councillors have voted,” said Mira-Fan. “And it has been decided that when Den-Lay’s injuries are healed, he will be banished from this world.”

“Oh. Fair enough. What about Grumpy Man? He could’ve killed us!”

Mira-Fan nodded slowly. “I am very sorry that you were put in danger. But former Councillor Dol-Tuk is remorseful. He acted because he believed his community was in danger from the Vey-tek-lah. He will not be banished from this world, but will be sent to live in one of our lowland communities, where he will have no access to our off-world trading partners.”

“Hmm.” A barely adequate punishment, Rodney thought. Still, it was their business. He squished the remaining sweet, white blobby thing between his fingers. 

It had certainly been an eventful mission; not only had a mutually beneficial trading agreement been established, but a mystery had been solved, a villain brought to book and, what’s more, Rodney was more than happy that he’d finally surpassed the required standard to earn the Eager Beaver’s Skiing Proficiency badge. So, take that, doubters.

“McKay?”

“Hmm?” He looked up. Sheppard was on his feet, his hand hovering before Rodney’s nose. The lantern-light had reduced to a dim glow and most of the diners had gone. “Oh. I must’ve zoned out for a few minutes.”

“Yeah,” said John, his lips twitching. “Zoned out. No snoring at all. And definitely no drooling.” He wiggled his fingers.

Rodney reached up and took his friend’s hand, surreptitiously wiping the corners of his mouth. “A fine feast,” he said. “Even by my high standards.”

John hauled Rodney to his feet. “Huh. You’d eat pretty much anything, Rodney.”

“True. And enjoy it. Apart from citrus.”

“Obviously.”

They made their way out to the entrance hall, where Ronon and Teyla were waiting.

Teyla smiled. Ronon put his head on one side and pantomimed a sleeping scientist, complete with grunting effects.

“Very funny, Friendly Fire.”

Ronon growled.

“Knock it off, kids,” said John. “C’mon.” He led them up the stairs.

“So, do we get the device?” asked Rodney. “As a souvenir? Or does Kesh-Ven get to put it on his altar and worship it?”

John patted the large pocket of his green silk robe. “Mira-Fan wants rid of the thing. Told me to take it back to Atlantis.”

Rodney found a burst of energy to bound up several stairs. “Give it here! Let me try it out!”

John shook his head, his lips firm. “Not tonight, McKay. We’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

“Huh.” Rodney plodded up a few more stairs. “Crazy Ancients. Do you think it was meant as a Wraith-scaring device? We should interrogate Den-Lay. Find out if there’re any more artifacts lying about, ready to be put to nefarious purposes.”

“Yeah, maybe not. I’m guessing he wouldn’t be too keen to talk to us.”

“No, you’re right.” Rodney glanced sidelong at John. He waggled his eyebrows and there was an answering gleam in his friend’s eyes. “After all, he would have gotten away with it…”

“...if it hadn’t been for us meddling kids.”

Rodney rocked under the force of John’s back-slap. He returned it with vigour and they ignored Teyla’s eye-roll and Ronon’s confused shrug and made the High Halls ring, not with the moaning of a monster, but with the howling call of an animated Great Dane.

oOo

The sun shone once more, the untouched smoothness of the snow a blinding white against the deep blue sky. Teyla adjusted her goggles. They were digging into her face and she would be glad when they were back on Atlantis and she could take them off.

But before they reached the Stargate, there was the knife-edged ridge to negotiate, its narrow, treacherous path newly cleared of snow for their benefit, but still daunting. Ahead of her, Ronon strode confidently forward, the reflective beads in his hair catching the light as he turned, briefly, to look back over his shoulder. He too, had his snow goggles on, but the tiny shake of his head told Teyla that their team leader had put into effect his strategy to get Rodney safely over the obstacle.

“Give it here, it’s my turn.”

There was a deep groan, unintelligible, but definitely in the negative.

“Come on, Sheppard, you’ve had it all the way, take it off!”

There was another groan, rhythmic as a pattern of speech, but Teyla could pick out no words.

“No, I didn’t! Hours, indeed - a few minutes and then you took it off me!”

The monster spoke again. And apparently Rodney could interpret his friend in any language.

“I can too! It works just as well for me as for you!”

Teyla glanced over her shoulder. The great ice monster put a hand on its hip, shook its head and waggled a large, blue-white finger. Then it pirouetted on one leg and struck a dramatic pose. She smiled and picked her way carefully down the twisting, turning path, the valley floors to either side distant, misty dreams, far, far below.

“You are such a child, Sheppard! You want to wear it through the Gate, don’t you? Give Elizabeth a fright!”

The monster groaned its denial.

“The Gate detail’d probably shoot you!”

There was a steady crunching of snow and shale behind Teyla, puffing breath and resentful muttering.

“You’ll _have_ to give it to me when we get home. Ancient artifacts are mine by default. I’ll put it through a rigorous programme of intensive study and testing.” Rodney humphed in agreement with his own words.

“You just wanna play,” said Ronon, from the top of the Gate platform.

“I’m sorry, I believe I just used the words ‘rigorous’ and ‘intensive’?”

“Just means play.”

“Yeah, Rodney. That’s all science is. Just playing with gizmos.” John, back to his normal size and shape, grinned in deliberate provocation.

“Oh, really?” Rodney’s hands slapped a flurry of DHD symbols and the Gate hummed to life. “Well, the next time I save your ass, Colonel, remind me to shout ‘Olly olly oxen free’ when I’m done with my 'gizmos'!” Rodney continued to grumble as the event horizon flew out and then stabilised. “Playing, indeed. Nobody appreciates me. All you can do is mess about with scientific equipment which should be passed immediately into my expert care.”

John turned the faintly-glowing red device over in his hands. “McKay?”

“What?”

John jerked his head over his shoulder. “Nice little stroll?”

Rodney’s eyes followed the zigs and zags of the arête back and forth and higher and higher toward the mountain town. He tipped his head slightly to one side. “Hmm.”

“Hmm?”

“Hmm.” Rodney folded his arms across his chest and his chin thrust higher into the air. “As the hero of the Shen-Lay-Tahn triple black diamond run, I no longer have anything to fear when it comes to dangerously precipitous mountain paths, even those off which a scientist less hardened to the rigours of high adventure might easily plunge to his untimely demise.”

“Oh,” said John. “A quick up and back again, then?”

Rodney merely held out his hand and snapped his fingers. John put the device into his friend’s hand.

Rodney tapped his radio. “This is McKay.”

“Go ahead, Dr McKay.”

Rodney slapped the device onto his chest. “We’re coming through.” He smirked. “We’re bringing a friend.” 

John tapped his radio. “Uh, yeah, hold your fire, Atlantis.”

Rodney took off his snow goggles and his eyebrows crunched together in concentration. Then the ice monster of Shen-Lay-Tahn strode forward majestically and was swallowed up in the rippling depths of the event horizon.

“C’mon, kids,” said John. “This should be fun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mystery is solved and the team return to Atlantis! And you’ll have to imagine the scene in the Gateroom and the tricks that John and Rodney get up to with the monster-making Ancient device!
> 
> Thank you very much for reading. Please leave kudos if you liked my story! Comments are also very welcome - I’d love to hear what you think!


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